Microsoft did a metaanalysis on general hardware failure based on the error reports sent by literally millions of consumer PCs. Although the results weren't particularly interesting (Hard drives fail the most, with rates consistent with what backblaze observed in the posted link), I was impressed by the sheer volume of data available to the study. http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/144888/eurosys84-nighting...
Thank you, this is a real gem. I'm very grateful for MS Research in general, as they do some very interesting things that are only possible when you're the size of Microsoft, et. al. but I really do wish more academic papers came out of huge institutions. This knowledge really is worth sharing!