[Cialug] Google Hard Drive Study

[Nathan C. Smith]

> Proprietary nature of these data?  Observed failure rates of various
> hardware models doesn't seem proprietary to me.  (I don't see a lot of
> vendors suing tomshardware.com...)  This would be one of the most
> interesting parts -- I'm sure we'd all like to know which particular
> drives did best out of such a huge population.
> 
> It also seems like it would help the market punish bad drive vendors
> and encourage them to do better.  Survival of the fittest drives.
> Everyone wins (except people who make bad drives).
> 
> So I guess I don't understand their reasoning for withholding this.
> Can anyone else here disabuse me of my naiveté?

If you listen to the Podcast Leo put Steve Gibson http://grc.com on the spot
for which hard drives have a high failure rate.  He said Western Digital,
and Leo LaPorte swears by one of the high-end WD Models.  Everyone has a
different experience so it would be very interesting to get real information
about brands.  Steve should be sharing his data too.

I don't think anybody wants to upset the H.D. manufacturers too badly.  A
comment about brands from Google could swing the whole market towards a
certain maker resulting in lawsuits.

I'm hoping the information will be "leaked" at some point.

-Nate