Since I installed Vista it seems my hard disks spin down after 10 minutes of inactivity.

I think I had read/heard that HD's starting and stopping shortened their lifespan. I know with XP they ran full time.

Should I disable this feature?

On the other hand I have three drives stacked together and I was thinking it would cut down on heat, and my PC will be quieter when idle if the power saving is enabled. I just don't wanna contribute to the untimely deaths of these drives, two of them already have about 5 years on them.

HDD failure is the sux0r

10/21/2008 5:10:02 PM

every time a drive spins up/spins down, it shortens the life of the drive

10/21/2008 5:27:59 PM

Quote :

"Another problem with power management is that it sometimes is "penny wise, pound foolish". Hard disks are subject to reduced life due to the effects of thermal stress, when they are allowed to spin up and spin down repeatedly. This is one reason that I leave my PC on all the time; my hard disks probably spin up and down only a couple dozen times per year. Some systems have power management settings that spin down the hard disk after 5 minutes of inactivity. These systems are putting their disks through thousands of thermal expansions and contractions per year! When you consider how incredibly little power a hard disk uses in steady state, and the fact that a lot of power is drawn when the disk is spinning up, I believe that in the long run you are better off not letting your disk spin down to save power this way. Where does power management make sense? It can make sense with your monitor, but again, set a reasonable idle time-out: having your monitor turn itself off after 2 minutes of inactivity is probably increasing your chances of problems. You need to experiment with your system and see what works for you. If you are having strange problems with your system though, you should try turning off all the power management first, to see if it goes away. Often, it will."

10/21/2008 5:37:15 PM

i've noticed this as well and had always heard that spin up/down was bad, so

Quote :

"Should I disable this feature?"

where do you enable/disable the feature (i could check google, but if you already know, share the knowledge)?

Quote :

"two of them already have about 5 years on them"

replace them...if they're that old, they can't be that big, so you might as well go ahead and pick up a 500gb for $50 and safe yourself the possible headache

10/22/2008 10:21:21 AM

Quote :

"where do you enable/disable the feature"

not sure about vista, but in XP you just go to Desktop Properties, Screen Saver, then Power Management

I have my HDD turning off after 2 hours of inactivity with my laptop plugged in, and 15 minutes of inactivity with no external power

10/22/2008 10:30:30 AM

I would love to see some empirical data on this question, using lots of different use cases.

I "get" the concept, and instinctively agree with it to a certain extent, in that it certainly doesn't make sense to spin the drive down after seconds or maybe minutes of inactivity.

But what about, for example, if you have a drive that you use only for backups, and backups happen maybe just once a day and take just a couple minutes? It just seems to me that spinning up for 5 minutes, barely enough time to get hot, and sitting idle for 23:55 a day would be better than running 24/7 when it's barely in use.....

10/22/2008 10:33:03 AM

see thats what I have always thought. I have an external drive that backs up certain files on my desktop a couple times a week and outside of that it is completely off.

10/22/2008 10:37:17 AM

that makes sense for an external storage device but if you're talking about the system drive or a drive that has programs installed on it that get used often, its different

10/22/2008 10:40:59 AM

yeah, but now that most computer sales are laptops, it again doesn't make sense to keep the drive spinning all the time, at least not when you're on battery power.

I'm sure you can do all sorts of cost-optimization calculations, but again my gut feeling is that the increased potential of a HDD dying (in a laptop) from spinning up and down is offset by the increased drain on the battery, realized as lost productivity and more replacement batteries. Not to mention, if you keep the laptop regularly backed up onto an external drive, who cares if it dies after 2, 3 or 4 years.

10/22/2008 10:48:25 AM

i'm wondering about my case...my HTPC has no reason to be on until i get home in the afternoon...then, it's usually on from around 6 until 11 (even if i'm not actively using it)...then it gets shut off for the night

i can't imagine leaving it on for 19 hours per day while not in use (133 hours per week, 532 per month, 6935 per year) is better for it than one spin up and one spin down every 24 hours (so a total of 730 "stress" events per year)

10/22/2008 11:11:58 AM

this thread is relevant to my interests

10/22/2008 11:25:06 AM

Quote :

"this thread is relevant to my interests"

Mine as well.

I've never had a real problem (knock on wood) with the hard drives I've left on 24/7. On the other hand, my HTPC, which I had set to power down drives after 5-10 minutes of inactivity is currently showing all sorts of bad sectors and corruption

[Edited on October 22, 2008 at 12:02 PM. Reason : .]

10/22/2008 12:01:29 PM

well it doesn't sound like anyone has any actual advice or data. Just tired old rules-of-thumb and "conventional wisdom"

10/22/2008 12:02:02 PM

do some original research if it bugs you that badly

10/22/2008 12:11:30 PM

i've never been overly concerned about it. timely backups work for me.

the only computers that get left on 24/7: htpc and server.

[Edited on October 22, 2008 at 12:30 PM. Reason : and great cooling of course.]

10/22/2008 12:30:37 PM

currently, my HTPC blows warm air directly into my living room...isn't a big deal NOW since it's cool outside and i'm already paying to heat the house, but i moved there before summer, so extra heat was sucky

10/22/2008 1:03:22 PM

yeah it wouldn't work as well if it's in your living room.

my media/server closet has an air intake that pulls from the HVAC system or from a duct the runs under the house. right now the 40degF air outside is GREAT.

if i put any more crap in there, i could use it to heat the house.

10/22/2008 2:11:21 PM

It kind of makes sense that constant running vs. stopping would increase hot vs. cold which would in turn create constant expansion vs. contraction. I would think temperature changes on a regular basis would be bad for mechanical electronic components (like a hard disk) over time.

My C: drive has lasted beyond the average life of a hard disk. I am wondering if this could be contributed to the fact it has pretty much been running and probably at about the same temperature for over five years. It is in a desktop with 2 case fans, and 2 power supply fans (one in one out), even when it starts and stops it would only be for a reboot so it would never really cool down.

I mean it has been off for power outages and the one time that I moved during that period but that is about it. Could it be that constant running temperature is better than the device cooling down whenever possible?

10/22/2008 2:19:19 PM

Hard drives dont get enough for expansion to really be a problem i wouldnt think. I might be able to see this on something like a graphics card that can see major temperture flucuations (60C temp changes on some).

but While heat changes are bad for components the real killer based on data i saw 2-3 years ago are the electric surges from turning a computer on (power floods through the system and stresses components) hurt at least CPU's and graphics cards the most.

10/22/2008 2:51:48 PM

well one cluster that the nre dept has that runs 24/7 lost its master due to hard drive failure and it is in a room (150 sq. ft) that is kept at 65 degrees (15 tons of cooling just for that room)

anecdotes are fun!

10/22/2008 2:58:30 PM