I have been using computers since the mid 80's and portables/;laptops since 1987. I have never had a hard drive failure on any device. The laptops logged well over 4 million miles of air travel to every continent save for Antartica. Strictly for music in my home system I have have run McIntosh MS-300, Olive 4HD, and now the MC200. No failures there either. You go ahead and waste money on back-up hardware or paying for cloud storage. If my MC200 dies I will just purchase the newest generation of whatever and reload the music I listen to, culling those albums I never listen to anyhow.