Needless to say, I’ve also gone for RAID5 in my new desktop PC. I also have Western Digital drives, so with any luck, I’ll be able to get the same service.

I think the amount of hard drives I’ve seen die for no reason is well into the 30s or 40s. I think it’s happening a lot more these days. Perhaps because of the higher density or perhaps just because they use cheaper components.

I’ve also got a solid state hard drive in my desktop PC. Presumably these don’t die, but they do of course have a finite lifecycle. Not sure when or how you find out your SSD is dying, or how it affects data, so I guess I cross that bridge when I come to it ;).