Originally Posted by corrado33

This is the important part, the servicing generally requires special tools (I'm talking about bleeding.) The tools vary from one brand/family to another brand/family.

If I had to guess though, I'd say disk brakes last longer. I took a bike with almost brand new rim pads on a 30 mile off mountain bike trail. By the time I finished the pads were 3/4 gone. Sure, I was on them a lot of the time, but still, that's a lot of wear. On the other hand I've ridden my disk brake bike multiple times on that trail (and for the rest of the summer) and the pads are still fine with plenty of wear.