Nah, perish the though of my trying to say anything doesn't play a
role in ... whatever. It's all connected of course and as soon as
you try to say always or never, the gremlins and Murphys will come
scrambling in from every orfice and totally negate any recent well
intentioned allegations<g>.
As you say, it's all generalizations unless we're lucky enough to
work in a lab that specializes in such things or at least have
access to some of their records, many of which are questionable at
best anyway. Actually, if you've ever disassembled any hard drives
carefully enough, it's amazing the heads manage to live as long as
they do, buried in amongst the flying platters and all with what
appears at least to me, to be very flimsy physical structures. At
least the magnets are a blast to play with<g>!
I agree with everything you said; no arguement at all in any way. I
think my reaction was more to the point that the discussion seemed
to be assuming that there was only that one single failure mechanism
that meant anything and I wanted to point out that it wasn't going
to go anywhere useful;
As for mr unknown, or ms, whatever it may be, some just feel a need
to grasp for their lack of power in the relatively safe ehter of the
'net. There's quite a mix of ego, personality and covert power plays
on the groups but they're mostly harmless beings<g>.
Cheers,
Twayne
Thanks for the elucidation, but it seems to me that you're just
describing the ways in which disks wear out. Are you claiming that
the amount of use, specifically the amount of head movement, does
not play any role in causing at least some of those issues to arise,
subsequently leading to failure? Speaking, here, of disks that
aren't essentially DOA? Ones that have been in use for some time? I
would imagine that bearing failure or seals gone bad would lead to
the highest proportion of failures, failures that could derive from
simply idling for five years or whatever, but other types of failure
surely derive from actual use, as opposed to spinning idly, do they
not?
Of course I was making a generalization, as was everyone else in the
thread except Unknown, who has a developed a hobby that consists of
seeing if he can catch me in an error. He is often in error and I
feel it's my responsibility to correct those errors, which had
caused him to develop resentment, etc.
There's a balance to be struck. Of course a heavily fragmented
disk will endure more wear, but overuse of defrag will do the
same. And of course fewer disks wear out due to excessive defragging.
It's more the opposite. The vast majority of them are of the
first type -- not enough defragging, rather than too much. But
that doesn't make my statement ridiculous. It's a true statement.
In reality there are so many other variables involved in these
scenarios that generalizations can be made but that's about all. I
seriously doubt the two camps here actually cover the reality of
disk failure. One would be hard pressed to even get empirical
evidence of either case. In my experience the reasons for disk
failures have ranged from worn out bearings to dust (broken seals)
to a platter's head failure to head misalignments due to rough
handling, to ... you name it. Then that takes you into areas such
as whether it's best to leave the disk spinning or shut it down
during periods of non-use, etc. etc. etc.. I've never seen one that
indicated the problem was attributed to excessive head movement of
any kind where the head just wasn't able to move; something you can
easily hear in nearly 100% of the drives ever made. Not trying to
do an ego boost for myself here; just trying to
indicate that it's sort of a moot point about defrag or not from a
mechanical viewpoint. As long as the hermetic seal remains in
tact, there should be little to wear out except for grease moving
out of its intended place and not getting used, which IME has always
been
what crashes disks early in their lives. Somewhere I have a white
paper on this from some lab but I can't find it now of course!
Cheers,
Twayne
That is an absolutely ridiculous statement. Granted, disks wear
out. However, as a product, they have a life expectancy.
If a disk fails chances are it won't be because of defragging.
Did it ever occur to you that there could be MORE wear if it is
NOT defragged? "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote in message
The joke doesn't apply. Unnecessary defragging will simply wear
the disk out faster for no good reason.
--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com
Penorama wrote:
I've been told during Windows 98 days that it's good to run
Scandisk and Defragmentation regularly to keep the computer
spick and span. Does it still apply to these days of Windows
XP and Vista? As a matter of fact I carry out these
maintenance measures every
week, but would like to know their relevance in the present
day software environment.
[Joke shortened]
Doctor is leaning over a fallen actor on the stage of a Yiddish
theater around the turn of the last century.
From the back of the balcony, a Yiddisha-mama voice cries out:
"Give him an enema!"
The doctor stands and shouts back: "Madam, the actor is dead!"
Same voice from the balcony, a bit more sheepishly: "So, it
can't hurt."
