If you could name the most important component that is housed inside your computer what part do you think that would be? To be honest, there are lots of parts on your 
computer that are essential for the system to operate properly so maybe we should rephrase the question. What component of your computer is most likely to fail? This question will narrow down the results quite a bit and the answer might surprise you. Your hard drive is the correct answer not just for the last question but also for both questions.
Your hard drive is one of the most important hardware components and it also the most fragile and the most likely to fail. It is a component that we really do not give much thought to and we generally take it for granted until we can no longer access our data. Even though they are the most likely component to fail, they usually last quite a long time despite the punishment they take day in and day out.
Personally, I have drives last as long as 16 years. A case history is my first Windows 95 computer back in 1997. The machine still runs and boots up and the amazing part is that the drive is the original that came with the machine. That drive ran almost 24/7 for years and I even used it as a weather server, which was very punishing on that drive. IBM makes the drive, known today as Hitachi. This type of life is not always typical in every circumstance. Controlled tests have been done on the three main manufacturers including Seagate, Hitachi, and Western Digital. I will share some of the results from those tests and the results that I have found in my own testing.
According to the experts, Hitachi drives rein above all the rest in a controlled test environment. Western Digital falls just slightly behind. Seagate, which has been labeled as one of the best drives, surprisingly to me finished in last place. The Hitachi drives had a consistent failure rate of less then 2% while rival Seagate, was as high as 14% in some cases. The tests were done with drives that were running 24/7 with no down time. You do have to remember that these tests are done in a server environment rather then a desktop environment and the conditions are probably harsher then what you would normally have in your home or office environment.
Ok, now I am going to talk about my experiences with hard drives. Between my weather website and computer repair activity, I have lots of computers all running at the same time for many hours a week. In some cases, they run 24/7 365. As you can imagine, I have used almost every brand of hard drive out there and the work they do is sometimes punishing. I will say that the majority of my drives are Seagate while a couple is Hitachi and the rest Western Digital. Right now, I have about 6 Seagate drives that have been running 24/7 for 7 years plus. These drives are in both laptop and desktop scenarios. In addition to the main drive in each computer, I also have a matching cloned drive for each as well. That way, if a drive does actually fail, we have a full replacement ready to go on the fly. Fortunately, it is rare that we have had to implement this activity due to a hard drive failure.
The majority of the drives that we have seen failures on have been ones that were used in special drive enclosures and used as a USB backup drive. In the two instances that we saw failures it was with a Hitachi drive. The only Seagate drive that we saw a failure on was one that we received new and it was defective right out of the box. This was probably due to excess vibration fem the delivery process of UPS.
I do regular SMART tests on all my drives to be sure the performance standards are all up to par. I have had one drive in the past year that had a below average SMART test and I immediately took that drive out of service and replaced it with a new Western Digital. The failed drive was a Western Digital as well.
Another thing to consider is that laptop drives will usually fail sooner then their desktop counterparts. This is due to the harsh conditions these drives must endure. Remember, you are constantly moving, bumping and maybe even dropping a laptop computer as you go about your work. In addition, a laptop computer runs much hotter then a desktop system and this can also decrease the life of the drive. In my tests, these drives lasted almost as long as the desktop varieties. I have had equal performance and life with both Hitachi and Seagate drives in a mobile environment.
The bottom line is that when you are choosing a brand of drive to purchase, there is no conclusive evidence that one drive will outperform the other as far as life span goes. Just buy the size that you need and shop carefully because if you look hard enough, you can save a lot of money.
Posted by, Ross Deprey
Its seems like for my hard drives dont seem to last that long! It must be just my luck!