Does a 5400rpm HDD have a longer lifetime than 7200rpm?

"I wouldn't have thought so...

I would have thought that the motor is simply built ""faster"" - thicker material / better thermal properties - bigger/more (don't know what would be better) ball bearings...

The fact is, in the days of desktop machines with 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives, I saw nothing that made me think that one was more reliable.

Of course, one way of looking at it (especially with laptops) is typically 5400RPM are standard, and everyone would buy laptops with them and use them in the evenings and then turn off - where as it takes an enthusiast / someone who knows what they are doing to want a 7200rpm drive - the sort of person who would leave their pc on at nights and/or hours at a time, and even play games for hours at a time...

In the example above and what I tend to see in real life is that all hard drives seem to have a time limit and it is the ones that are on the most / get a heavy use are the ones that usually go first."