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I had a 300 Gb Maxtor disk fail just before Xmas after about 2 1/2 years. Started making funny noises when searching so swapped out before full failure. Following this thread I wonder if we're hitting the limits of the technology. The drive (no pun intended) has been to get more and more bits per square centimetre on the platters and this has been done by improving all the stages of storage, platter material, write mechanism, read mechanism, control electronics, mechanics, motors etc. but generally not new science. I remember my first hard drive was a scrap 5Mb one I got from work, the size of a house brick and I hooked it into my Amstrad 1640. The HD du jour for those with long pockets was 40 Mb only half the size of a house brick. The pressure on the manufacturers was to get to 100Mb, 500Mb, 1Gb, 100Gb, 500Gb and recently 1 terrabyte. There have been several jumps in technology, I can't remember the jump points, but I think the last one was about 100Gb. More and more design and manufacturing improvements since then but I think they have run out of jumps. The rate of development of storage size and sales pressure to be first or at least close IMHO has resulted in any improvements to be used in increasing storage size rather than improving reliability. In these conditions the more you squeeze for size the less reliable the product will be. I think we need a spell of consolidation. I think the next big step will come from new science, but I could (and have been) wrong. George -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html