*before anyone get mad at me, read the following*

I don’t think redundancy is a solution.
(sample scenario: “what happen if my car’s engine broke in the middle of highway?”, “oh, let’s have another engine! so if one broke, there’s another one that will keep you running!” NOT a solution).

Basically, why the heck we (consumer) have to pay for unreliable product? why hard drive manufacturers cannot make a reliable/predictable hard drive in the first place? rather than spending time and R&D for faster and bigger space hard drive, why not work on reliability issue?

say, predictable age of a hard drive at least 5 yrs (this is guarantee 100% will last at least 5 yrs). have a count down reminder of 5 yrs (starting from the first data written) built-in to the HD BIOS. once 5 yrs is almost up, the remainder alert the user to replace their HD.

once the user plug in a new HD (here comes the cool part), on boot, the BIOS ask user to clone the HD to the new drive. clone exact copy (includes serial number and model number were updated behind-the-scene style).

once the cloning process completed, it ask user to “OK” to shut down the computer so they can remove the old HD. or “continue” to use the computer with the old HD de-activated (user still need to remove the drive eventually). when the user remove the drive from the pc (cooler part!), user will have to put the drive into a static-resistant plastic bag that come with the purchase of the new HD. because after the removal of the drive from the pc, the old HD enables a X mins timer that will release EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse, Matrix-style) enough to wipe out the entire data on the drive inside the static-resistant plastic bag. wipe out clean, as in un-usable, un-readable, un-recoverable. and then user can safely send the dead drive to its manufacturer for recycle purpose.

having said all that, the solution for peace-of-mind data backup / storage is NOT redundancy, but RELIABLE media storage to begin with!

why are we paying for hard drive manufacturer’s error?

comments and thoughts are welcome…

btw, nice show chris! watch the show sine long time, this is my 1st time post comment. cause this HD problem doesn’t make sense. i thought drobo is the solution, but i don’t think that anymore.
there must be a better alternative, a sure and bullet-proof solution that make sense.
maybe apple will come out with one ;)

ps: i know you’re in english major, so excuse my grammar and all. =)