Congrats Apple you win.

[macgeek18]

Congrats Apple your hardware and software truly out lives Window's Systems. My 2012 13" MBP is still going strong with it's factory 500GB HD and my 2012 Thinkpad T420's hard drive went toast today. Performance started to really slow down after Windows 10 and I believe the new mode of the OS actually never turning off but going into hibernation mode killed my drive. Macs work wonderfully and last even with never turning them off for sometimes 6 plus months but you can't expect that from Windows. This was my last PC I'm buying going to keep upgrading MBP's and iPads. I can't have systems going down like this. Not to mention restoring the OS onto a new drive is an awful experience.

 

[0388631]

That makes no sense? Prior to using SSD tech in their MBPs or MacBooks, Apple used any supplier that they deemed appropriate. My early 2008 MBP had a Hitachi drive for its hard drive. Hibernation merely takes what's in the RAM and writes it to the drive. So when you boot up again, it's all there. It's been a feature of Windows for a very long time. Win 95 had it at the hardware level and later on, Windows 2000 had it at the OS level. You could argue the constant large writes may have attributed to the drive, but if that's the case then your hard drive, be it traditional, hybrid or SSD, is consistently written to during system I/O and even if you have a browser open. Safari, Firefox, Chrome and all derivatives constantly write to the cache, even if there's nothing but a single static page open. It isn't unheard of for software to write to the cache at a tune of 3-4 GB a day. Heavy users may write to their OS hard drive to the tune of 14 GB a day.

Unless you've been sleeping under a rock, Linux isn't the only OS run on corporate servers. There's an OS called Windows Server, and servers are on 24/7 365 a year. Azure uses Windows Server and I haven't heard of any catastrophic failures with Azure since it's been up. Hard drives will experience more wear and tear if they turn off (shut down/hibernate) and turned on over the course of many years. A hard drive that's always on is always moving. It isn't constantly spinning down to shut itself off and it isn't spinning up 2-3 times a day each way during normal start up, restart and shutdown functions. Hard drive reliability also improves as the drive gets larger. A 750 GB HD will have better long term reliability over a 500 GB one, and so on. A compact 2.5" HD will be less reliable and less faster than its equivalent in storage size 3.5" counterpart.

I've currently got a WD Caviar Black in one of my desktops that has been powered on nearly 5,000 times and its total on-line time is about 1,249 days. That's about 3.5 years. The kicker? It's a scratch disk. It's been filled up and formatted a dozen or so times since I bought it. No errors yet.

 

[macgeek18]

I just re read through my original post and It didn't come out right. I'm used to hardware failures on systems and Macs have them too what I meant is that before I could upgrade to an SSD it died and Windows is a total pain to reinstall from scratch. Having to rebuild my Thinkpad is going to take time I don't have. I understand Servers run Windows Server and Azure and they rarely suffer failures. I'm just annoyed right now with how Not easy it is to reinstall Windows from scratch. It was a pro Mac rant. I wish Windows would get aboard with easy OS reinstalls.

 

[0388631]

I just re read through my original post and It didn't come out right. I'm used to hardware failures on systems and Macs have them too what I meant is that before I could upgrade to an SSD it died and Windows is a total pain to reinstall from scratch. Having to rebuild my Thinkpad is going to take time I don't have. I understand Servers run Windows Server and Azure and they rarely suffer failures. I'm just annoyed right now with how Not easy it is to reinstall Windows from scratch. It was a pro Mac rant. I wish Windows would get aboard with easy OS reinstalls.

Right. You're in luck then, mate. MS just adopted monthly updates. You can go ahead and grab a Windows ISO creation tool here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Updates are simpler now, as I said. New ISOs for 7, 8.1 and 10 are often updated to include the latest and greatest patches. You simply need to run a Windows Update to catch anything that isn't there. Microsoft now rolls up 90% of their individual updates in one download on Patch Tuesday (2nd Tuesday of each month). Anyone clinging onto old installation media can use the WSUS Offline tool to download the patches and install from there, too. But that's more for IT people, not your average Joe.

 

[macgeek18]

That's good to know. Thanks for that info. I haven't been in normal IT since Windows 10 came out.

 

[0388631]

I've never been in the IT field myself. I just read instead of thinking nothing can be done. Best way to look at things is to assume someone else had the same problem as you and found a way to fix it. That's really the beauty of the internet these days. In the old days, we has crappy BBS boards, IRC and god-awful AOL.

 

[macgeek18]

I learned most of my IT skills from forums. College just solidified the Networking skills I was lacking. The forums have been an incredible resource.

 

[BeefCake 15]

That makes no sense? Prior to using SSD tech in their MBPs or MacBooks, Apple used any supplier that they deemed appropriate. My early 2008 MBP had a Hitachi drive for its hard drive.

Are you passively trying to trash Hitachi drives?

 

[0388631]

Are you passively trying to trash Hitachi drives?

In a matter of words, no. That wasn't remotely the point of that line you've quoted. If anything, it was to point out the utter foolishness of the OP. A drive, traditional, hybrid or SSD will fail regardless how well put together it is. It can fail years down the road, it can fail overnight, it can even fail days after installing it or getting it. There are ancient SCSI drives from the 90s that still work without trouble.

 

[macgeek18]

In a matter of words, no. That wasn't remotely the point of that line you've quoted. If anything, it was to point out the utter foolishness of the OP. A drive, traditional, hybrid or SSD will fail regardless how well put together it is. It can fail years down the road, it can fail overnight, it can even fail days after installing it or getting it. There are ancient SCSI drives from the 90s that still work without trouble.

This is my first failed drive. Just frustrated that's all.

 

[0388631]

This is my first failed drive. Just frustrated that's all.

I've had two myself. One was a Maxtor I bought in 1999 or 2000, and I had it for all of three days before the heads crashed. The second was many years later with a SATAII Seagate drive that was exposed to moisture because I was lazy to store it in the proper materials.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I doubt you'll need a serial number for the Windows install. Your laptop will likely input it behind the scenes as it and other pre-builts use a SLIC to insert the key during install. And it'll likely be registered to that computer. Then head over to your manufacturer and grab the latest drivers. There should be an all-in-one downloader. Most companies have those now, even motherboard manufacturers.

 

[BeefCake 15]

In a matter of words, no. That wasn't remotely the point of that line you've quoted. If anything, it was to point out the utter foolishness of the OP. A drive, traditional, hybrid or SSD will fail regardless how well put together it is. It can fail years down the road, it can fail overnight, it can even fail days after installing it or getting it. There are ancient SCSI drives from the 90s that still work without trouble.

True, it's a safe rule of thumb to expect drives to survive up to 5 years. Anything beyond 5 years is an added bonus from a backup and data protection preemptive planning. @macgeek18