What is the best strategy for long drive life? (turn off drives at night?)

[dg]

I often wonder if I should turn off my computer when not in use, or at least
turn the drives off. What do you folks think? I use a mix of IDE and
serial ATA drives and windows XP. XP has the options of turning off drives
after so long of inactivity, how long should that period be? ANY tips are
greatly appreciated. I appreciate any comments on the subject.

Thanks,
--Dan

 

[Rod Speed]

I often wonder if I should turn off my computer when not in
use, or at least turn the drives off. What do you folks think?

I think its best to leave systems that get used much
on all the time, but there isnt a lot in it life wise.

I use a mix of IDE and serial ATA drives and windows
XP. XP has the options of turning off drives after so
long of inactivity, how long should that period be?

I set it to never myself.

ANY tips are greatly appreciated.

If you do decide to turn systems off, its generally best to hibernate than
to shut down. That starts noticeably quicker when you turn it on again.

I appreciate any comments on the subject.

One significant downside with leaving systems on
all the time is that if there isnt anyone there when
it goes bang, the risk is higher of a fire etc.

I personally only turn systems off when I am going to be away for days or weeks.

 

[Dorothy Bradbury]

Best strategy for long drive life?
o Probably temperature
---- both in terms of maximum (keeping them cool)
---- and in terms of temperature cycling - gets into Physics Of Failure
o Thus powering them off perhaps only at the end of the day
---- this could degenerate into consumer v enterprise again
---- at least it provides a balance re on-time v cyclings

I would certainly turn CRTs off overnight re temperature/power use.

 

[Al Dykes]

I often wonder if I should turn off my computer when not in use, or at least
turn the drives off. What do you folks think? I use a mix of IDE and
serial ATA drives and windows XP. XP has the options of turning off drives
after so long of inactivity, how long should that period be? ANY tips are
greatly appreciated. I appreciate any comments on the subject.

Thanks,
--Dan

I'm really happy with the automatic hibernate feature on XP and w2k.
I can walk away from my PC and if I don't get back to it, it will save
everything and power itself off after a set time. Touch the power
button and it's back with all my applications where I left them, in
just a few seconds.

I get Longer life for all the components, and a lower electric bill.

Before my systems could hibernate I just turned my monitor off at the
end of the day.

 

[Rod Speed]

I'm really happy with the automatic hibernate feature on XP and w2k.
I can walk away from my PC and if I don't get back to it, it will save
everything and power itself off after a set time. Touch the power
button and it's back with all my applications where I left them, in
just a few seconds.

I get Longer life for all the components,

Thats distinctly arguable.

 

[Wayne Youngman]

Hi,

one thing is to keep them cool!

 

[J. Clarke]

I often wonder if I should turn off my computer when not in use, or at
least
turn the drives off. What do you folks think? I use a mix of IDE and
serial ATA drives and windows XP. XP has the options of turning off
drives
after so long of inactivity, how long should that period be? ANY tips are
greatly appreciated. I appreciate any comments on the subject.

This is a religious issue. Any drive you buy will unless there is something
wrong with it or you use it for a hockey puck or otherwise abuse it be
running long after it's become obsolete due to tiny capacity. While they
are rated for a certain number of start stop cycles the number is immense,
while they are rated for a certain number of hours before failure the
number is equally immense. Personally I shut machines down when they're
going to be down for a week or more but otherwise don't worry about it, and
I haven't had a drive failure that wasn't traceable to impact damage or bad
power or cooling in a very long time.

One thing to be aware of with 24/7 though, it's possible for a drive to fail
in such a way that it will run reliably but not restart once it's shut
down. If you start and stop regularly you may see signs of impending
failure before that point is reached--if you run 24/7 you may not find out
that your drive has failed until you've shut it down and can't get back up.

 

[Guest]

Well, I have seven fans in the case. Two intakes across the HD, 3
internal to the case (front to back) and two in the power supply.
Internal temperature is about 2 degrees hotter than ambient. Seems to
work. I have lost 2 (SCSI) drives in the last ten years. The current
crop of one SCSI (about 7 years) and three ATAPI ( two to three years
so far.) (More than one computer.) I retired several others because
they were tiny. I also lost one of the old original Control Data 1 GB
5.25 full height SCSI drives after about 6 years.

Jim