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Hard Drives Spin Down/Spin Up



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 10th 11, 05:55 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Daddy[_4_]
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Posts: 121
Default Hard Drives Spin Down/Spin Up

I'm a recent convert to the power savings options of my Studio XPS 8100
desktop. Previously, everything was running all the time with no attempt
to save power.

Now that I'm employing power savings, I'm hearing something that I
didn't notice befo the sound of my hard drives (2)spinning down and
spinning up while I'm sitting at the computer, probably in accordance
with my power settings.

Is it okay for the hard drives to spin down and up frequently, or was I
better off with leaving them running all the time? (P.S. I used to power
down my computer every night; now it just goes to (S3) sleep.)

Daddy
  #2  
Old February 10th 11, 06:23 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
BillW50
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Posts: 1,698
Default Hard Drives Spin Down/Spin Up

In ,
Daddy typed on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:55:18 -0500:
I'm a recent convert to the power savings options of my Studio XPS
8100 desktop. Previously, everything was running all the time with no
attempt to save power.

Now that I'm employing power savings, I'm hearing something that I
didn't notice befo the sound of my hard drives (2)spinning down and
spinning up while I'm sitting at the computer, probably in accordance
with my power settings.

Is it okay for the hard drives to spin down and up frequently, or was
I better off with leaving them running all the time? (P.S. I used to
power down my computer every night; now it just goes to (S3) sleep.)

Daddy


To answer that question, we need to know that make and model of the hard
drive. Then look up the specs (if published). For example, the MTBF of
the last hard drive I looked up had a MTBF for spin-ups was 50,000
times.

Say it does this about 5 times per hour and the computer runs for about
12 hours a day. That would be like 833 days or about 2 1/4 years.
Spinning up once a day, it would take about 137 years to hit 50,000
spin-ups.

MTBF isn't an exact science of course. Some can go longer and some less.
But there is a little doubt that a lot of spin-ups per day will
shortened the life of a hard drive significantly.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era)
Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3


  #3  
Old February 10th 11, 07:29 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
William R. Walsh[_2_]
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Posts: 931
Default Hard Drives Spin Down/Spin Up

Hi!

Is it okay for the hard drives to spin down and up frequently, or
was I better off with leaving them running all the time? (P.S. I
used to power down my computer every night; now it just goes
to (S3) sleep.)


Schools of thought differ on this. My own take on it? Outside of
laptops, just let the drives run steadily. If Windows is going to spin
them up and down often, you might as well save the wear and tear. And
believe me, Windows and all of the drivers, system services, programs
and whatnot that you are running will request a spinup quite often.
Other operating systems do behave a little differently in this regard.

Spinup does stress the drive's electronics a bit more than just
sitting there running (in particular, the servo driver for the spindle
motor, which will have to supply more current to get the motor moving)
and waiting for the next request. If a device is going to fail, it's
more likely to fail when under more stress than normal.

Putting your computer to sleep is fine, at the S3 level it won't be
drawing much more power than it would be if it was simply "off".

William
  #4  
Old February 11th 11, 01:12 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
who where
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Posts: 48
Default Hard Drives Spin Down/Spin Up

On Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:23:30 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

(snip)

But there is a little doubt that a lot of spin-ups per day will
shortened the life of a hard drive significantly.


That's the essence of the answer.
  #5  
Old February 15th 11, 07:48 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Daddy[_4_]
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Posts: 121
Default Hard Drives Spin Down/Spin Up

who where wrote:
On Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:23:30 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

(snip)

But there is a little doubt that a lot of spin-ups per day will
shortened the life of a hard drive significantly.


That's the essence of the answer.


Thanks to both of you. Think I'll adjust my power saving options.

Daddy
 




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