[Tfug] And another one down

[Bender]

Does keeping a drive running make it live longer?


>I don't use power down on drives because of the stress it adds. A drive 
> left on 24/7 gets less wear then one shutdown every night.
> 
> On 9/8/2013 2:35 PM, Bexley Hall wrote:
>> Hi Timothy,
>>
>> On 9/8/2013 1:16 PM, Timothy D. Lenz wrote:
>>> I've heard others say the 500Gb drive was a bad drive.
>>
>> Then take that into consideration when shopping for a replacement!  :>
>> Vote with your wallet!  (I'd also send them a complaint letter; you
>> might get something for your "trouble"/effort...)
>>
>>> And todays message:
>>>
>>> This email was generated by the smartd daemon running on:
>>>
>>>     host name: x64VDR
>>>    DNS domain: tdl
>>>    NIS domain: (none)
>>>
>>> The following warning/error was logged by the smartd daemon:
>>>
>>> Device: /dev/sdc, 49 Offline uncorrectable sectors
>>>
>>> 49 sectors down. And with the last drive failure, the power supply was
>>> also replaced.
>>
>> Note that lots of things affect the wear-and-tear on a drive in
>> a system.  Temperature, power flucutations, access patterns, etc.
>>
>> E.g., I "discovered" that one of the reasons for laptop drives
>> failing in 24/7 use was the constant spinning up and down that
>> they were experiencing.  I.e., when used *as* a laptop, a drive's
>> activity mirrors the user's activities.  If the user "goes away"
>> for a long period of time (e.g., overnight!), the drive can
>> spin down and *stay* spun down.
>>
>> OTOH, in continuous service, the usage patterns of "the system"
>> can conspire with the (naive) timers that determine when the
>> drive can/should spin down.  Periodic tasks can then aggravate
>> this by forcing a drive that "just" spun down to spin back up
>> again.  Like clockwork.  Every day.
>>
>> [My latest "laptop drive" in that 24/7/365 situation has not
>> failed.  I suspect part of that is because I no longer let the
>> drive "spin down" -- it's not a laptop concerned with prolonging
>> battery life and the power saved (from the ACmains) isn't worth
>> the effort to replace a failed drive "often".]
>>
>> Of course, only you can evaluate the environment in which your
>> drives are operating!  :>
>>
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> 
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