Say you took a hard disk

[brxndxn]

I used to always let my hard drives spin down to save power (though it really doesn't save that much anyway). And, I'd have a hard drive or two fail every year out of one of my computers.

Then, while working at an engineering firm, I noticed that our panel boxes were typically designed to keep industrial motors running 24/7 even if they were not needed in order to keep them lasting longer. Once a motor heats up, it's parts stay the same size and there is less wear and tear..

But, if your hard drive motor is spinning up and spinning down every couple hours, then it is heating up and cooling off.. expanding and contracting.. causing more wear and tear. So, I keep my hard drives spinning 24/7. I haven't had a single one fail in the past 3 years.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: MichaelD
If it's a Western Digital, about a week.

:laugh: So true....

:laugh: Seconded
I had an 80 GB WD that I used to use for video capture, that thing bit the dust after maybe 6 or 7 months of maybe 3-5 captures a week. Seagate FTW, they've never let me down so far; I've got 3 in my computer right now, one in the HTPC, one in my sister's computer, at least 10 in computers I've built for friends, one that's 2 years old that I put into my father's server at his office, and one sitting on a shelf I use for periodic backups, they're all working like clockwork.
My XBOX came with a WD HD, nearly all my friends got Seagates (they all had V1.3 or older XBOX3N, I got the Halo SE, which AFAIK is a V1.4); the thing sounds like a cheese grater. The Maxtor in our HP got fuxx0red after maybe 3 years of really mild use. It was the "family computer", I think the most strenuous activity it ever saw was ripping a CD.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
IDE, ATA, SATA, or SCSI....

No matter which one you choose, put it in a RAID configuration with a hotspare and get some sleep.

BTW....by design, hard drives are made to work. What makes them fail is usually mechanical failure, firmware failure, or heat/environmental issues.....so "rag" on it all you like.

I said PATA or SATA.

Scarpozzi is right though. harddrives are designed to work a lot. Do you think servers are turned of a lot? what about streaming video servers? that pounds a harddrive pretty bad. anyway, harddrives usually fail, as Scarpozzi said, because of mechnical failure (the motor has had it) firmware failure (very rare) or heat issue.

Thanks, I'm well up-to-date on servers.
However, decent servers don't use PATA or SATA drives.

 

[ultimatebob]

Hard drives usually have a specified MTBF of about 400,000 hours, which means that it should last for about 45 years. How long will it really last? Try it out, and let us know