How long does a laptop hard drive typically last? | Help Desk | Yakezie Forums

I believe that most drives are rated for something along the lines of 10,000 hours MTBF (mean time before failure). That said, the magnetic arm hovers VERY close over the platter and if it touches, your drive is toast. It doesn't take much of a bump if the disk is in use to destroy your hard drive.

My HP died after 2 years but I think a virus killed it.  The Mother board went – not the hard drive.  I gave it to my tech son and he was able to replace the MB and it works fine now.

This time I went with a Dell. Hope it lasts as long as College Investors!

I've had one defective HD that lasted about two months, but no other problems. I have heard many horror stories, so I am a big fan of backups. I am using Dropbox for everything important these days.

I've actually only had HDs fail in my desktop computers.  My laptops have either died of video screen, motherboard, or old age problems.

Financial Samurai said:

Glen Craig – Free From Broke said:

Almost a half decade and a foot drop I guess will do that.  Sorry to hear about that.  From what I understand SSD's are supposed to be more durable since there are no moving parts (think first couple generation iPods versus the newer ones).

 

SSD also boots faster and shuts down faster.

It was unfortunate, but after I realized it stopped working, I just closed the laptop and went to bed and didn't sweat it. It only cost about $140 for a new HD and 2 hours to get everything back including going to the Apple store for diagnosis the next morning. I couldn't have asked for an easier and quicker experience.

Just dont forget to back your HDs up!

 

Thanks for the reminder. I am good about backing it up. I do it once a month but I always have to ask my husband to remind me how to do it….

PK @ DQYDJ said:

I've seen numbers closer to 500,000 hours MTBF on mechanical drives.  MTBF can be a stupid number (think life expectancy, except with some humans living to be 1,000), but in a vacuum it means by 500,000 hours around 65% of drives will have failed.  Even though you dropped the drive from only a foot, you can still kill it – drops from more than a foot (within reason) are usually safer since the acceleration sensor has time to react to the fall.  Still, I've bricked a few IBM Deskstars that way.

SSDs are a solid choice (literally).  Any model from the past few years will last a while.

~20,000 days? I guess consumer abuse reduces that substantially?

Financial Samurai said:

I'm considering getting the new retina display, thinner MBPro 13" when it comes out… however, I'm sure it's going to cost over $1,650, and after replacing my HD, my 5 year old MB deserves at least another year of use!

I like using things until they die, but man… I wouldn't be able to stand a 2003 version laptop b/c of the speed and likely bulkiness? 

We just bought our rising college freshman the thinner MBPro 13" with retina display. We couldn't wait for the newest version to come out. We bought the superdrive to go along with it because she likes to watch movies on her computer. I'm really jealous because it is so light and my MBPro is so much heavier. It is also blazing fast.

We drive until they die, but that doesn't mean the older versions remain our main laptops. Both of our daughters are still using their old white MBs for music, etc. Our oldest is a dj at her college radio station and her MB is 6 years old and she uses it to organize music for her shows. She keeps her MBPro strictly for school and her internship.