They don’t really have a ’server quality’ drive in the TC, or at least that was the finding in the early tear-downs of the devices. It’s the heat the really b0rks the HDD board in the router itself. The drive rarely dies itself – the refurb I received with a bad drive was a bit of an outlier – but instead its the circuitry that just gets too hot over time, which degrades and ultimately destroys the router’s internal systems. You likely won’t ever notice a degradation – it’ll just die – which prevents you from getting ready for an impending failure.

I’m not doing anything to try and extend the TC’s life; it’s covered under my Applecare warranties. I’m quite happy with it – it’s fast, offers cheap and easy backup – but I should note that it isn’t my sole backup solution. I have a ‘layered backup’ approach, whereby I try to secure my data by backing it up in a few ways. Thus, when the TC dies, I’m not without backups. While Apple sells it as ‘the be all and end all’ for home backups, I’d disagree with that assessment: it’s a quick, convenient solution but shouldn’t be a sole backup solution.

I don’t really know what to do to extend it’s life, save for pointing an external fan system, of some sort, at the device. I haven’t read if this is actually helpful or not. Keep it well ventilated, and away from other heat sources. This is a device that Applecare is useful for, but if you need to buy Applecare just for this then you might instead think of something like the HP Windows Home Server systems, which let you backup your macs while also functioning as a home server for content storage/streaming capabilities.