[Tfug] And another one down

[Timothy D. Lenz]

I don't use power down on drives because of the stress it adds. A drive 
left on 24/7 gets less wear then one shutdown every night.

On 9/8/2013 2:35 PM, Bexley Hall wrote:
> Hi Timothy,
>
> On 9/8/2013 1:16 PM, Timothy D. Lenz wrote:
>> I've heard others say the 500Gb drive was a bad drive.
>
> Then take that into consideration when shopping for a replacement!  :>
> Vote with your wallet!  (I'd also send them a complaint letter; you
> might get something for your "trouble"/effort...)
>
>> And todays message:
>>
>> This email was generated by the smartd daemon running on:
>>
>>     host name: x64VDR
>>    DNS domain: tdl
>>    NIS domain: (none)
>>
>> The following warning/error was logged by the smartd daemon:
>>
>> Device: /dev/sdc, 49 Offline uncorrectable sectors
>>
>> 49 sectors down. And with the last drive failure, the power supply was
>> also replaced.
>
> Note that lots of things affect the wear-and-tear on a drive in
> a system.  Temperature, power flucutations, access patterns, etc.
>
> E.g., I "discovered" that one of the reasons for laptop drives
> failing in 24/7 use was the constant spinning up and down that
> they were experiencing.  I.e., when used *as* a laptop, a drive's
> activity mirrors the user's activities.  If the user "goes away"
> for a long period of time (e.g., overnight!), the drive can
> spin down and *stay* spun down.
>
> OTOH, in continuous service, the usage patterns of "the system"
> can conspire with the (naive) timers that determine when the
> drive can/should spin down.  Periodic tasks can then aggravate
> this by forcing a drive that "just" spun down to spin back up
> again.  Like clockwork.  Every day.
>
> [My latest "laptop drive" in that 24/7/365 situation has not
> failed.  I suspect part of that is because I no longer let the
> drive "spin down" -- it's not a laptop concerned with prolonging
> battery life and the power saved (from the ACmains) isn't worth
> the effort to replace a failed drive "often".]
>
> Of course, only you can evaluate the environment in which your
> drives are operating!  :>
>
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