Do you let your HD spindown when idle?

[tart666]

Just wondering if the extra idle time is worth all the power cycling the drive will see. I never could figure out if spindown extends or shortens the life of the drives.

Edit: Typically I leave the drives on, but this issue came up when I decided to put a fourth drive into my main PC. I figured spindown will reduce the heat generation a little, since I am unlikely to use all four at once.

 

[Thor86]

IMO, I never spin them down as doing so will just increase wear and tear on the life of the drive(s). You may as well shut down the whole system if you are looking to save on electricity or heat generation.

 

[mechBgon]

No, for several reasons.

1) system is doing the United Devices Cancer Research distributed-computing project for the AnandTech team, 24/7 more or less

2) it's a SCSI drive, it'll probably last until I'm thoroughly sick of it, 24/7 or not

3) I can schedule daily antivirus scans for the nighttime hours, etc

 

[tart666]

k, now I have four HD's in my 400SC, all on all the time. Looks like spindown wasn't reducing the heat all that much anyway. Thx guys

 

[wfn]

what thor said. spinning the drive down is bad for it's health. it's like driving your car in traffic with maybe larger intervals of stop and go. once the dive reaches it's optimal working conditions temp/rpm wise it's best to keep it like that.