> I would hope dropping a phone is also a rare occurrence for typical phone users.

I drop my phone all the time and I don't have a case. It's fine.

Me too, though the screen did get a small crack once. If there was a 1% chance of file system corruption each time I dropped my phone, it would have happened to me by now, I think. And usually when I drop my phone, the battery comes out. It used to happen only half the time, but I think the cover got loosened as a result of all the times I dropped it, so now the battery falls out pretty much every time.

It's 2016, if you abruptly shut down a computer in the middle of a filesystem write the chances of ending up with a corrupted filesystem are of around a 0 %, so those are the chances of getting a brick when you drop your mobile.

If you mount with nobarrier I'd say that the chances are somewhat higher than 0%

Not with any filesystem with a proper journaling system. Filesystem corruption is almost impossible.

Barriers are what force the journal to be written consistently, and IIRC they were enabled by default after 2.6.31 because of corruption with ext4.

you could have corruption and not know. i'm pretty sure on the mac hfs+ corrupts files all the time (why? i've run into it multiple times). but it's not necessarily something you'll immediately notice.

That's upsetting. I'll try not to drop my phone while an update is in progress in that case.

I dropped my phone at the weekend without a case. I now have a shattered screen. :/ It's about the 5th time I've dropped my phone and this is the first time something like this has happened.

Apparently the glass in phone screens develops micro fractures from being dropped. (Well, from hitting the ground). You can't see them with the naked eye, but they weaken the glass and they grow with each successive drop.

It's probably not just bad luck that the glass happened to break after the Nth time you dropped it. It was bound to happen if you kept dropping the device.

Carpet or hard floor (ceramic, etc) ?

Wood floor and sometimes concrete. I don't drop it from my hand, usually from a pocket or lap, though.

What phone do you have?

Moto G, 3rd gen

Hah, I have 2nd gen. I drop it pretty often too. Slippery black plastic back.

I drop my phone with unnerving regularity, but I use a case and it's always fine.

I suspect that if I didn't have a case I wouldn't drop it so often.