Hard Drive Powe Cycle

I recently bought a Philips HDD based MP3 player. The 1.0" microdrive inside
is loud enough for me to hear it spin up and seek when it is used. To save
battery power it is programmed to spin down whenever it is not used, but
there is no time out, so if there's a half second gap in data transfer, or
the internal processor can't keep up, the hard drive will spin down, then
back up again. I know that power cycles are bad for full sized hard drives,
and I would think spinning down for half an hour is bad, but spinning up 6
times in 10 seconds must be killing it! Or do the "power cycle wear" rules
not apply to a drive this small?
Thanks