Power management questions

[casualsax3]

My computer is on 24 hours a day like a lot of people, but I probably only use it for about 2 hours, more if I'm playing through a game.
I have 3 hard drives (two SATA WD 80 gigs, and one PATA Seagate 160) and currently I don't have them spin down.
I've come from the school of thought that it puts more stress on a device like a hard drive to spin it down and up frequently than it does to just leave it running. The startup of most things (cars, hard drives, power supplies) is the most stressful and historically when most
failures occur.
Is it worth spinning the drives down?
What are some of your power management beliefs and settings?

 

[dalfollo]

My POV is that a HD has X # of hours it will run before failure....cycle down the HD and those hours will be available to your at a later time....

 

[firewall]

Yes, it does saves power, after all......

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi again Cas, Look at it this way. Continuous running wear the bearings. It doesn't quit spinning. The platter motor has very little startup torque. Some day you have to shut it down or the power goes off. It wont spin up again. All you can do is try the freezer trick. Best to have a warning that it's having problems by shutting down when not in use. Another thought - It's not a light bulb! Luck, Jim