carpent@coltrane.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Todd Carpenter) (04/15/89)
Disk ON: The bearings are designed to last. I have never seen (so I'm young - big deal - I still get around) a drive wear out due to bearings. I'm not saying faulty manufacturing can't produce bad bearings that wear, but that's not the same issue. Talking to certain drive manufacturers, the only worry they have is when the head planes in the same place for too long (weeks/months). The lubricant on the disk can get a "trench" built in it, and when the head is yanked back for a read, it can plane up, and come back down with a resounding crash. However, this is more than a bit unlikely, and even they don't seem too concerned by it. If you are going to be gone a week, turn it off. This also avoids power problems. If you *can* have the heads park, then sure, do so. Good luck. Not all drives allow you to tell it what to do with itself. Startup takes more time. (though that should hardly be noticeable). The main problem is due to power failures. If the power is off, *most* drives won't be affected by power surges, brown outs, etc. If the power is on, and the head is moving, or you are in the middle of a write, you may have a slight problem. If it is just sitting idle, only a major spike or power loss could cause damage - but for power losses, the head should just retract, preventing trouble. Drive Off: Heat fluxuations are the worst for the disk, bearings, motor, and chips. Once they are stable, very little wear occurs. This especially apparent with high density drives. The servo mechanism may have a significant amount of thermal dilation, so a "cold" drive may actually write data that it cannot read when it is warm. I'd leave the drive on.
usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (04/17/89)
In article <20464@srcsip.UUCP> carpent@coltrane.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Todd Carpenter) writes: > >Disk ON: > >The bearings are designed to last. I have never seen (so I'm young - big deal >- I still get around) a drive wear out due to bearings. I'm not saying faulty >manufacturing can't produce bad bearings that wear, but that's not the same >issue. Here's a scarey story for ya: Here at network services @ msu, we still have some old Comlumbia Data Products PCClones. They are not the best built machines I've ever seen. A couple months age, a hard drive in one of them started making noise. Shorty, it began smoking, and then SSSCCCRRREEEECCCCHHHH!! went the drive, stopping abruptly. This probly won't happen with a decent harddisk, but if yours starts makeing bad noises, *turn it off *now**