Correction  (update) to my post below.
Some new hard drives are better than before.
The start/stop cycles could now be 40,000 min.,
and the MTBF could be: MTBF 750,000 POH
From:  Western Digital, http://www.westerndigital.com/acrobat/mtbf.pdf
     What is Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) ?
     MTBF is "Mean Time Between Failure" and is typically expressed in hours. The
     hours are calculated by dividing the total number of failures into the total number of
     operating hours observed. For Western Digital, MTBF represents the average number
     of hours a field population of drives will work before a failure occurs.
     The Western Digital MTBF specification is 300,000 hours. If a disk drive is operated
     for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would take an average of 34 years before this
     disk drive will fail."
For more drive questions/answers see:
 http://www.westerndigital.com/acrobat/wdcaviar.html
Section: General Information Sheets
This is a WD Expert drive.        Rick Glazier
PS: Adding to someone else's post,
Idle Power 6.9 W,  Read/Write 11.1 W

----- My Original Message -----
> I have read the "white papers" where it says the hard drive design life start up
> is 10,000 times, five years wear-out, or 100,000 - 300,000 hours MTBF.
>(I'm still looking for that hard drive that will last 34 years...)

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