After that it went into my server at home. It was used for various things. At this point it’s spent the last 5 years as the disk my DVR records to. (Because 5 years ago I was expecting it to die any day and didn’t want anything more important on it…) So it’s being continuously written and rewritten 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It’s now about 17 years old and has spent almost the entirety of that time powered on. It’s been packed up and sent on two cross country moves. Still kicking.

I have a number of WD Green 1.5TB drives that are nearly as old and still in daily use in the same server.

Maybe I’ve just had great luck, but I’d be more surprised by a drive dying sooner than eight years.

I have some ~140GB SAS drives HP branded that are probably of similar age based on the capacity, and they still work… but again, they haven’t exactly been active for the last 15 years straight.