Long term effects of hard drive spin down vs idle

[imported_Theos]

Which is better a drive's long term health on a machine that?s left running for 24 hr+:

1) Set it to spin down when not being used to reduce heat
2) Leave it idle to reduce the number of times it must spin up and recalibrate.

or...

3) Who cares, the drive is gonna die whenever it wants to, regardless of 1 or 2.

Thanks! :thumbsup:

 

[Schadenfroh]

3

 

[CraigRT]

my drives always idle, i never have a hard drive shutdown
don't have too many problems, except with the usually failing maxtors