How do you know your drive is failing?

[Gary D]

Beside the obvious about getting noisier, what other means are there to tell that drive is on its last legs??

How do you find out if your manufacturer is not supporting your drive any more with new firmware?

Between ripping, scanning, and burning, I would expect my drives have over 1200 uses each. What is the normal life of a drive?

My drives are the LG 4163 and (the workhorse now), the NEC 3550.

I am thinking of buying another NEC 3550 now so I am ready to replace it when it dies.

[NightTran]

I can't tell because I spread them out on my drives but I read somewhere that some one can get up to 4000 but it could be a Myth only, to me as long as you are not abusing the drives they can last very long, even when you think they die you can do like Chewy did then It may last another 1000's

[copyless]

I would say that there is no normal life expectancy to a drive, simply because everyone has their setups different. They also take care of them differently. Since heat is the major killer of electronic components, someone that only cleans their drives when they have to, naturally will have a short lived drive. The same for someone who doesn't have adequate ventilation.

I would think the first keys to a drive failing would be the tracking mechanism making excessive noise when it is reading, you hear this as a clicking noise, as it tracks back and forth. I would also look for inconsistencies in the scans or reading errors.

[katzdvd]

Between ripping, scanning, and burning, I would expect my drives have over 1200 uses each. What is the normal life of a drive?

I started keeping track of rips/burns when I purchased the Benq 1650. I am at around 200 right now, & Nero scans still look good.

A friend of mine goes thru drives fast, but he also burns discs in rapid succession, one after the other. I believe that this is a sure way to prematurely wear one out; not giving it a chance to "cool" after each use seems hard on the unit.

Just my .02

regards, katz