info-mac@uw-beaver (02/12/85)
From: (Neil Groundwater [stug]) npg@lbl-csam I have seen much discussion of the merits of power-up/power-down on overall reliability and silicon-shock. But no one has discussed the impact of power-cycling winchester disk drives. Specifically, can someone comment on whether Lisa 2/5, 2/10, Mac XL, and/or HyperDrive should be left ON or OFF when not in use. Typical user-duty cycles are using the system most week-days for 4 to 10 hours. During the day I expect to leave the system ON but I am curious whether good habits suggest power-down overnight, over weekends, or only when I need to move the machine. What are the relative merits of "landing" the head versus spinning out the bearing life? We leave our 2/5 drives on all week and shut them down on weekends, generally - the mother-ship is shut off most nights. The 2/10 has a fan (nice and quiet, too) on the disk drive, but we shut it off entirely most nights. HyperDrive has a fan which runs when warm - I'm expecting to upgrade to one this week and I will post their recommendations when I learn them. ...Neil Groundwater
info-mac@uw-beaver (02/13/85)
From: kevin@harvard.ARPA (Kevin Crowston) Leaving a hard disk on was the subject of a recent discussion on INFO-IBMPC. The general consensus was that it was probablly okay and that many people did leave their PC's running without any ill effect. I assume (without any knowledge of Mac Hard Disks, so be warned) that this would apply to most any Winchester disk. If you want specifics, look at the INFO-IBMPC archives, on ISIB.arpa, or post me (as a last resort). Kevin Crowston Aiken Computation Lab