does a more active hard drive wear out faster?

[her34]

if you use a hdd for something like torrents, is it more likely to break down than if the same hard drive were used for just the OS?

 

[orangat]

Yes of course.

 

[Kyanzes]

They must wear faster when used more frequently cause HDDs have mechanical parts. So yes, obviously.

 

[ZippyDan]

no. like most things in life, wear and tear is determined solely by his noodly appendage

 

[Stas]

The platters are spinning all the time (when the computer is on), unless otherwise specified in "Power Options" (Control Panel). So, no. The wear is the same either the drive is active or not.

 

[ZippyDan]

er, there are other parts in an HD that im fairly certain dont move if there is no read/write access

 

[PandaBear]

The stuff on the PCB don't wear out fast enough to cause problem (they should last 10/20 years), but the read head collide with the media more frequently (they do collide once in a while) when you seek more often, and the heat over time can cause other parts to degrade/wear out also. People don't realize that simply a probability of sh1t happen (bad sectors, wrote onto servo mark, write off track, etc) over time can be enough to cause something to wear out.

Most home/office users don't use their drive enough to wear it out prematurely unless it is in a server with heavy traffic.

 

[AdamSnow]

Yes, it will wear out faster...

BUT I dont think you would notice any premature drive failure with even heavy home/small office use... they should last years unless there is another problem with the drive.

 

[drum]

Originally posted by: ZippyDan
no. like most things in life, wear and tear is determined solely by his noodly appendage

FSM has nothing to do with this!