I've worked in IT for several years. My own fail rate is one or two drives per year in a 50 computer environment. So in a 150 computer environment its 3 to 6 a year. That's desktops/laptops.
In servers its a completely different game. Thanks to A/C and steady loads its much, much better. There is a chance of getting a run of bad disks and suddenly having multiple failures a year, but only on that specific model. Generally, I'd say that rate is closer to .25-.5 fails for every 50 drives per year, if that. So over 4 years I can expect one or two drive fails on 50 disks.
Regardless, drives fail all the time on desktops and laptops. The reliability is a huge, huge problem. Supposedly, SSDs were going to fix this, but their teething problems are probably making them worse than spinning disks.
In servers its a completely different game. Thanks to A/C and steady loads its much, much better. There is a chance of getting a run of bad disks and suddenly having multiple failures a year, but only on that specific model. Generally, I'd say that rate is closer to .25-.5 fails for every 50 drives per year, if that. So over 4 years I can expect one or two drive fails on 50 disks.
Regardless, drives fail all the time on desktops and laptops. The reliability is a huge, huge problem. Supposedly, SSDs were going to fix this, but their teething problems are probably making them worse than spinning disks.