80% maximum capacity on a hard drive?

Some years back, in a networking class. I was told that the maximum
percentage that a hard drive or a volume could be filled is 80 percent,
because otherwise you would end up getting excessive wear on the hard drive.
Does that limit still apply? Or did that only apply to the drive containing
the system volume? What about a storage hard drive soley used for storing
data?

Thanks.

James wrote

Some years back, in a networking class. I was told that the maximum percentage that a
hard drive or a volume could be filled is 80 percent, because otherwise you would end up
getting excessive wear on the hard drive.

That was always complete pig ignorant drivel.

Does that limit still apply?

It never did and so obviously doesnt now either.

Or did that only apply to the drive containing the system volume?

Nope, it never did and so obviously doesnt now either.

What about a storage hard drive soley used for storing data?

Nope, it never did and so obviously doesnt now either.

James wrote:
Some years back, in a networking class. I was told that the maximum
percentage that a hard drive or a volume could be filled is 80 percent,
because otherwise you would end up getting excessive wear on the hard drive.
Does that limit still apply? Or did that only apply to the drive containing
the system volume? What about a storage hard drive soley used for storing
data?

Thanks.



Total BS and always was. I have filled every sector on FAT16 and FAT32
HDs under W9x and under XP, and NTFS HDs under XP, with no surprises.
Clearly, defrag won't run; but all files remained readable and nothing
crashed unexpectedly.
--
Cheers, Bob

"James" wrote in news:OZEjg.5519$o4.5206
@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:

...80 percent... ...excessive wear

Never heard that one. Whatever was the reasoning for it?

"McSpreader" wrote in message
...
"James" wrote in news:OZEjg.5519$o4.5206
@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:

...80 percent... ...excessive wear

Never heard that one. Whatever was the reasoning for it?

This was thrown at me by a teacher of an NT class as one of a zillion
factoids that we had to learn. At the time nobody in the class questioned
that.

James wrote:

"McSpreader" wrote in message
...
"James" wrote in news:OZEjg.5519$o4.5206
@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:

...80 percent... ...excessive wear

Never heard that one. Whatever was the reasoning for it?

This was thrown at me by a teacher of an NT class as one of a zillion
factoids that we had to learn. At the time nobody in the class questioned
that.


It was probably based upon the effect of a fragmented drive.

craigm wrote:
James wrote:

"McSpreader" wrote in message
...
"James" wrote in news:OZEjg.5519$o4.5206
@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:

...80 percent... ...excessive wear

Never heard that one. Whatever was the reasoning for it?

This was thrown at me by a teacher of an NT class as one of a zillion
factoids that we had to learn. At the time nobody in the class
questioned that.


It was probably based upon the effect of a fragmented drive.

Pity it was always pure pig ignorant bull**** even if it was.

"James" wrote in
nk.net:

"McSpreader" wrote in message
...
"James" wrote in
news:OZEjg.5519$o4.5206 @newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:

...80 percent... ...excessive wear

Never heard that one. Whatever was the reasoning for it?

This was thrown at me by a teacher of an NT class as one of a
zillion factoids that we had to learn. At the time nobody in the
class questioned that.


IMO the factoid is OK-ish, the reasonoid is BS.

It makes good sense to allow headroom in the space utilisation of
a drive to cope with transient peaks of demand. This is
particularly true of the system drive of a heavily used system e.g.
a server. The reasoning is that it's wise to avoid exhausting all
free space, which could be expected as a minimum to impact system
performance - more likely to crash apps, services, the o/s, and
risk data integrity. Housekeeping activities, e.g. backups and
defragging, usually require a fair amount of free space in which to
work efficiently.

James wrote:
Some years back, in a networking class. I was told that the maximum
percentage that a hard drive or a volume could be filled is 80
percent, because otherwise you would end up getting excessive wear on
the hard drive.

Utter drivel.

Or did that only apply to the drive containing the system volume?

The only grain of truth is that you need a certain amount of free space on
a drive to defragment it.

Possibly that myth started by telling poeple to always keep some space
free on their C: drive since windows won't start up or will crash if it has
too small a swap file, or no space for temporary files when printing etc.

As far as excessive wear is concerned, all you have to worry about is
heat and physical shock.

I remember once being told heavy usage would wear a track out
on the hard disk ! I think these people think of hdds like a vinyl record

--
Mike

"McSpreader" wrote in message
"James" wrote in nk.net:
"McSpreader" wrote in message ...
"James" wrote in news:OZEjg.5519$o4.5206 @newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:

...80 percent... ...excessive wear

Never heard that one. Whatever was the reasoning for it?

This was thrown at me by a teacher of an NT class as one of a
zillion factoids that we had to learn. At the time nobody in the
class questioned that.


IMO the factoid is OK-ish, the reasonoid is BS.

It makes good sense to allow headroom in the space utilisation of
a drive to cope with transient peaks of demand. This is particularly
true of the system drive of a heavily used system e.g. a server.

The reasoning is that it's wise to avoid exhausting all free space,
which could be expected as a minimum to impact system performance
- more likely to crash apps, services, the o/s, and risk data integrity.
Housekeeping activities, e.g. backups and defragging, usually require
a fair amount of free space in which to work efficiently.

And this has what exactly to do with "a heavily used system e.g. a server"?

And why would 2 GB free space be enough for a 10GB drive but not for a
100GB drive?