>How often do you have to repair them?

Sorry to jump in, but I just wanted to provide my own personal experience.

I have an application that has been commercially available since 1985. Relies exclusively on DBF's. Client based, meaning that each client can maintain multiple files for their clients.

40,000+ users, potentially hundreds of clients for each user. And each client file they create consists of a dozen or more data files. Do the math if you want to see how many thousands of files are being used regularly.

I can barely think of one call from a user regarding lost data due to power loss. Good programming... ? Nah, just not as susceptible to data loss as everyone thinks.