Do you keep your drives spinning?

[smithrh]

Just a generic question for people here...

Since I only access my server drives maybe once a day, and not even all of them, I have the OS spin them down.

My logic is that a non-spinning drive isn't going to have a head crash!

It's a minor bother in that there's a 5-7 second delay before I can get data if the drive has spun down, but I'm OK with that.

Any preferences here? Keep 'em spinning, or keep them stopped?

 

[kapalua12]

Just a generic question for people here...

Since I only access my server drives maybe once a day, and not even all of them, I have the OS spin them down.

My logic is that a non-spinning drive isn't going to have a head crash!

It's a minor bother in that there's a 5-7 second delay before I can get data if the drive has spun down, but I'm OK with that.

Any preferences here? Keep 'em spinning, or keep them stopped?

I'm really not sure stopping the hard drive does anything to prevent the hard drive from failing. It's usually starting and stopping electronic moving equipment which is most taxing on it. I see your logic though. That said, I do sleep my iMacs frequently.

 

[smithrh]

Here are my supposed benefits to spinning the disks down:

* silent when not spinning
* less energy usage overall (given my use patterns)
* less opportunity for failure (harder to break a drive that's not spinning)
* less heat

Drawbacks:

* Slightly annoying to wait for disks to spin up
* more heat cycles (cold to "hot" and back)
* possible wear and tear during spin-up phase

I've had quite a few DVRs over the years, and I've replaced a large percentage of those disks (around 30%). Those disks spin 24x7, which is probably why I spin my Mac disks down when I can.

 

[utekineir]

all the reading i've done never has pointed to a consensus decision on the topic.

the spin up bugs the hell out of me, but i've never disabled it.

on the upside other than an old hitachi deathstar i've never had a drive fail

 

[smithrh]

all the reading i've done never has pointed to a consensus decision on the topic.

Well, exactly. The research Google did on disk drive failures was pretty neat, but obviously they kept the drives spinning all the time, so it doesn't help here

Just about everything else I've read consists of old wives tales, opinions and hearsay presented as fact. One good nugget I found was that drives are typically rated to 1M spindown/spinup cycles, so that's comforting.

Also, someone else pointed out that laptop and notebook drives spin up and down pretty frequently and there isn't any increased mortality associated with that.

I think I've decided to spin them down for the reasons I gave above, but I'm open to other input at this point for sure (or else why would I have started the thread?)...

Of course, in a few years this thread will be considered "quaint."

"Ohhh... I found a thread about 'spinning' mass storage, take a look at this!"

 

[utekineir]

Of course, in a few years this thread will be considered "quaint."

"Ohhh... I found a thread about 'spinning' mass storage, take a look at this!"

That reasonably priced 1tb ssd that went up for sale yesterday is the real start of the ssd arms race.

Cant wait to see where it leads to.

We're all going to win.