In this week’s collection of ExtraBITS links, Adam Engst discusses the mythical Apple Car with The Tech Night Owl, Apple plans to show off something new on September 9th, Best Buy and Apple get chummier, and Joe Kissell identifies the best online backup service.

Notable software releases this week include BusyContacts 1.0.2, Napkin 1.5, Backblaze 4.0, and PDFpen and PDFpenPro 7.1.

Cloud backup service Backblaze is back with more analysis, this time looking at operating system upgrade rates over hard drive statistics. Backblaze’s Adam Nelson found that it took 4 days for 21 percent of Backblaze users to adopt Yosemite, while it took nearly 2 years for the same percentage of users to upgrade to Windows 8. Nelson offers a few theories for the disparity, including locked-down corporate computers, a lukewarm reception for Windows 8, and the fact that Yosemite is free.

In ExtraBITS this week, cloud backup service Backblaze has released the raw data from its hard drive reliability studies, Verizon is bulking up its data plans, The New York Times examines Apple’s victory over Microsoft, and President Obama has announced modest NSA reforms.

Last year, online backup service Backblaze released its internal data on hard drive reliability. The company has now updated its findings with some surprising results. In their new tests, 3 TB drives, especially those from Seagate, were dramatically less reliable than other capacities. The most reliable drives for the price were 4 TB drives from Seagate.

How confident are you in your backup strategy? Confident enough to be certain that your data would be 100 percent recoverable even if a meteorite hit your house? If you find yourself making any of 11 common mistakes when it comes to backing up your Mac, Joe Kissell would like to offer you some advice (and a book).

Apple CEO Tim Cook dominated the news this week, with a notable personal announcement and a variety of hints about Apple’s future at the WSJD Live conference. Also this week in ExtraBITS, Backblaze takes a look at OS X 10.10 Yosemite’s adoption compared to that of Windows 8, and Chris Breen of Macworld shares a way to revert back to iTunes 11.

In this week’s collection of ExtraBITS links, you’ll find out how to watch the Super Bowl for free, see how iOS has evolved over the years, learn why you should upgrade from Leopard if you use Dropbox, discover why you should avoid MacKeeper, and read about which hard drives are the most reliable.

Notable software releases this week include Backblaze 3.0, GraphicConverter 9.4, OmniFocus 2.0.3, ChronoSync 4.5.3 and ChronoAgent 1.4.7, Carbon Copy Cloner 4.0, 1Password 4.4.3, and DEVONthink/DEVONnote 2.8.

Online backup company Backblaze has produced another report on hard drive reliability, this time looking at specific vendors and models. Overall, drives from Hitachi (now owned by Western Digital) came out on top, with a 96.9 percent survival rate after 36 months. Second was Western Digital, whose drives had a quick initial die-off, but then stabilized with an overall 94.8 percent survival rate. In a distant third place was Seagate with a 73.5 percent survival rate. In spite of that, Backblaze is now buying mostly 4 TB Seagate drives due to their low cost and steady performance; the company also likes the Western Digital 3 TB Red drives.

Common wisdom says that keeping hard drives cool will make them last longer, but is it true? Backblaze’s backup boffins say no.