Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
FWIW, I didn't see any data in the Google paper itself that supported the relationship you suggest - perhaps you'd point it out
All of which misses the point. Perhaps the correlation [except in the extreme] of heat to drive failure is low; but the COST of a 80mm fan is also low. The chances of getting in an automobile accident are [individually] very low each time I get into my car - but I always but on my seat belt because the inconvenience [cost] of using the seat belt is very low. If a $4 fan makes a very minor improvement in drive failure probability - then it is $4 well spent.
My original assumption about disk failure was that they would fail statistically (versus temperature) like any other electronic component. But this assumption is suspect. While the Google data are messy (we don't know anything about the drive populations and if they were purchased in blocks at one time from one manufacturer or another) it is hard not to conclude from the Google data that there is an optimal operating temperature for a drive (about 45 C). If your $4 fan keeps the drive temp at 30 C, the Google data indicates that it may cut drive lifetime in half, roughly equivalent to the failure rate at 50 C. So it certainly forces *me* to want to reexamine my assumptions about drives. -- Tony Alfrey tonyalfrey@earthlink.net "I'd Rather Be Sailing" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org