I know it depends on manufacturer and conditions but, In normal conditions, how long would you expect, on average, a good brand hard drive should last?

Wow. You sorta answered your own question. Just like people, it lasts until it dies. I've seen them die in 6 months or still plugging away after 10 years. My laptop drives have all lasted at least 5 years, my desktop workstation, prior to this one about 8.

Carl

It all depends on the load. I have some Win 2000 pcs that ran around the clock for ten years doing a single task. Five to six years for a workstation with lots of activity. My workstation has three working drives in it...two survived the pcs they used to be in over ten years ago.

All hard drives have a MTBF number provided by the manufacturer. These numbers are typically 100,000 hours to as high as 1,600,000 hours (Segate SAVVIO drives). Click Here for a good explanation of how MTBF relates to real world conditions.

Rcaman

I have a friend who replaces harddrives every year in his home PCs, whether they need to be replaced or not. I can understand that logic too, kind of proactive replacement. Harddrives are pretty damn cheap now. Storage sizes keep going up too. That said, I only use Seagate harddrives, from the Constellation ES series, which are designed for long MTBF, long power on, etc. I've had the same ones for a few years now.

Drives come and go. I've gotten plenty of DOA drives or ones that lasted 30 days from every brand imaginable. It's luck of the draw.

I have a 72GB Raptor from 2005 which were notorious for overheating and dying...still works. It's 300GB big brother was replaced twice by Western Digital until I demanded they send a different model to me.

Thank's for the replies. Thank's for the link, Rcaman.