[Tfug] And another one down

[Bexley Hall]

On 9/8/2013 8:19 PM, Bender wrote:
> Does keeping a drive running make it live longer?

Well, that depends on how you define "longer"  :>

Spinning a drive up is a bit more stressful than letting
it *remain* spinning.  You have to *accelerate* the mass of
the platters/mechanism vs. overcoming frictional losses
*at* target speed.

OTOH, if you aren't *using* the drive, then keeping it spinning
is worse than letting it sit, cold.

E.g., I have a pair of 1.5T (external) drives on which I archive
my purchased software (CD/DVD images).  As I don't need to access
these things often, it would be silly to leave them spinning
24/7/365.  Likewise, silly to leave them powered up yet spun down!
So, I power them (actually, only *one* as they are mirrors) up
when I need to retrieve something from or *add* something to the
archive.  Then, spin down and power off until I next need to
access them (months? later).

In my "laptop drive" case, the drive was spinning down and,
almost immediately, being spun back up.  All day/night, every
day/night.  Sort of like "stop and go traffic" compared to
"freeway traffic" *or*( leaving the car parked in your garage!

>> 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.