The reliability of a hard-disk drive is typically described in terms of a quantity called mean time between failures (MTBF). Although this quantity is called a "time," the MTBF actually is measured in drive-hours per failure.
a. If a disk farm contains 1000 drives, each of which has a 750,000 hour MTBF, which of the following best describes how often a drive failure will occur in that disk farm: once per thousand years, once per century, once per decade, once per year, once per month, once per week, once per day, once per hour, once per minute, or once per second?
b. Mortality statistics indicate that, on the average, a U.S. resident has about 1 chance in 1000 of dying between ages 20 and 21 years. Deduce the MTBF hours for 20 year olds. Convert this figure from hours to years. What does this MTBF tell you about the expected lifetime of a 20 year old?
c. The manufacturer claims a 1-million hour MTBF for a certain model of disk drive. What can you say about the number of years that one of those drives can be expected to last?