[X4U] Applecare and hard drives

[SeaSoft Systems]

>From: Philip J Robar <pjrobar at areyoureallythatstupid.org>
>
>
>On Oct 4, 2005, at 11:59 PM, Jon Warms wrote:
>
>>  Without any supporting data other than my own experiences,
>>  I hypothesize that within the last two years of an Applecare
>>  contract, something like half the laptop and mini drives will fail.
>>  If this is true,  ...
>
>Maybe you're just trying to make a point, but this is so far from
>reality that it begs for a response. HDs commonly have a MTBF of
>500,000 to a 1,000,000 hours. Since most people don't know what Mean
>Time Between Failure really means I'll quote from a Samsung page,
>"SAMSUNG's MTBF for HDDs is 500,000 hours. That means that if you use
>your PC for 9 hours every day, your HDD should operate for 152
>years." For details see <http://www.samsung.com/Products/
>HardDiskDrive/whitepapers/WhitePaper_05.htm>.
>
>In the 11 years that I managed 100's of machines that ran 24 hours a
>day I only had 2 hard drives fail. The vast majority of people will
>never experience a hard drive failure during their life.
>
>

Exactly the point Philip.

Applecare is insurance, pure and simple. The cardinal rule of 
insurance should be "don't buy it if you can afford the consequence 
of not having it". Most people can afford to replace their 
PowerBook/hard drive/mac mini/ whatever. Insure your house, maybe. 
Your car, maybe. Your life, probably. But your computer? That makes 
no rational financial sense.

In every case I am aware of, an "extended warrantee" is one of a 
manufacturer's or retailer's major profit centers. I seriously doubt 
it is any different at Apple.

Buy Applecare, sleep well and boost Apple's stock. That's fine, but 
don't believe that on average over the long haul you will be saving 
yourself money.

My 2 cents

Richard