Google has recently published a 5-year study on hard disk failure. The conclusions are interesting, as they do not correlate directly to what has been believed to be the primary factors in disk failure.

As quoted from the report, “One of our key findings has been the lack of a consistent pattern of higher failure rates for higher temperature drives or for those drives at higher utilization levels. Such correlations have been repeatedly highlighted by previous studies, but we are unable to confirm them by observing our population.”

Read the study. (PDF)

Source: Google Labs Research Publications