Should I be leaving my hard drives on all the time? I had it set to auto-off in the powersaver menu but the TM drive keeps spinning up every hour, not only is this annoying but won't this be harder on it than a continuos run?
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leave hard drives on or auto off?
- Thread starter ocbo41
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I don't know about "harder on them". I wouldn't worry too much, though.
Are your drives loud enough to really bother you? Mine seem pretty quiet
I don't think it matters if you keep them on or off; your call (so helpful, right?)
Are your drives loud enough to really bother you? Mine seem pretty quiet
I don't think it matters if you keep them on or off; your call (so helpful, right?)
hehe just wondering what general consensus was. I wish I could have my TM drive set always on and keep my storage one off. The idle noise is almost none, can only hear it at night. The read/seek noise on the 250GB seagate 7200.10 is very annoying, sounds like a radioactive meter ticking away lol. The other seagate 7200.11 is silent however, never makes a peep on reads.
The 7200.10 250GB drive is so loud I am looking for another 250/320 boot drive when I have some extra money to burn...dunno what they did between the .9 and .11 revisions but its like 1980's/90's loud. Pretty quiet on idle, can't complain there.
The thing that really bugs me is the startup lag, I just set them to don't shutdown so I guess I answered my question 🙂 I've never had a disk go bad in my 8yr old pc with a maxtor and seagate in it, 1TB will be obsolete when they go bad I would imagine lol.
The 7200.10 250GB drive is so loud I am looking for another 250/320 boot drive when I have some extra money to burn...dunno what they did between the .9 and .11 revisions but its like 1980's/90's loud. Pretty quiet on idle, can't complain there.
The thing that really bugs me is the startup lag, I just set them to don't shutdown so I guess I answered my question 🙂 I've never had a disk go bad in my 8yr old pc with a maxtor and seagate in it, 1TB will be obsolete when they go bad I would imagine lol.
I have a pair of 8 year old Fujitsus (13 GB, LOL) that have been on for 24/7 without any power savings. Depends on the drive I guess. I had Seagate, IBM (the dreaded Deathstar series) and WD die on me with and without power savings and in far less time that 8 years. I leave my disks on power saving mode in Mac Pro. One of them is a Seagate 7200.9 and even the rotation is noisy (I won't even talk about seek).
But I don't know what's better for the disks...
But I don't know what's better for the disks...
CubeHacker
macrumors 65816
You are absolutely correct - the spin up is much more "Stressful" on the drive than just having it spin constantly. It would be better to simply leave it spinning all the time, rather than having it spin up and down constantly.
Father Jack
macrumors 68020
MRU
macrumors Penryn
MRU
macrumors Penryn
I think the recent Google study of their tens of thousands of hard drives showed an increased reliability from drives that were used more and on constantly.
Hard drive on, pants off 😀
And only on a computer forum can the word "hard" and a mention of pants being off be used in the same sentence and not mean anything remotely dirty 😉
But yeah, I leave my hard drives on, except for when I put my iMac to sleep, then they spin down. I figure spinning up once a day won't kill them (since my iMac only sleeps when I sleep)
Power on can be one of the most stressful things for electronic components, that's why most people say you should leave your computer running 24/7 (or at least sleep it when you're sleeping like I do), plus, it's convenient.
Digital Skunk
macrumors G3
Same here. Hard drive on and pants off.
It takes to long to have my drives spin up whenever I need something from them. I left them on ever since I got my tower, then I had to leave for a good while but wanted my computer to remain on, to conserve power I decided to turn power save on. When I returned I forgot to turn the power save off and every time i opened the drive up I had to wait for it to start up.
I leave them on and i wouldn't worry about them at all. The only time i wouldn't leave them running constantly is if they were larger than 750GB. I personally wouldn't trust that much info to a drive that would certainly get hot, and has more platters than a 250GB, 320GB, or 500GB drive.
It takes to long to have my drives spin up whenever I need something from them. I left them on ever since I got my tower, then I had to leave for a good while but wanted my computer to remain on, to conserve power I decided to turn power save on. When I returned I forgot to turn the power save off and every time i opened the drive up I had to wait for it to start up.
I leave them on and i wouldn't worry about them at all. The only time i wouldn't leave them running constantly is if they were larger than 750GB. I personally wouldn't trust that much info to a drive that would certainly get hot, and has more platters than a 250GB, 320GB, or 500GB drive.
UltraNEO*
macrumors 601
Hmm.. I dunno where you got your information from but newer drives with capacities of 500Gb and above don't have more platters, they actually have higher density platters, typically 500Gb per platter (250Gb per side).
Digital Skunk
macrumors G3
I got it from nowhere, it's just the way I feel about having that much info on such a big drive.
You're probably causing more damage to your large drives by turning them off and back on than if you just left them on.
Depends on the drive really. For example the 80gb ipods drive vs the 160gb ipod...they have different number of platters.
EDIT: For example read the third paragraph of this: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39263866,00.htm
Wow this thread took off in a hurry! 🙂
yea it seems the general consensus is that its harder on them, at least with time machine spinning it up every hour.
Does everyone's Mac-Pro spool down the CD player automatically every night? In the morning I have to hit Esc. to get it to turn on, and computer it's set to never sleep, and hardrives are set to never sleep. (except the monitor) ...once I hit escape something spools up and i'm ready to go....werid😕
yea it seems the general consensus is that its harder on them, at least with time machine spinning it up every hour.
Does everyone's Mac-Pro spool down the CD player automatically every night? In the morning I have to hit Esc. to get it to turn on, and computer it's set to never sleep, and hardrives are set to never sleep. (except the monitor) ...once I hit escape something spools up and i'm ready to go....werid😕
The number of platters has no relation to the reliability of a hard drive.
The constant use of it does. Keep it on. Statistically, it will last longer.
The constant use of it does. Keep it on. Statistically, it will last longer.
Father Jack
macrumors 68020
Sorry I didn't realise you were talking about hard drives ...... 😛😛
Drink, girls ar*e etc.etc. ..... 😉
macz1
macrumors 6502
You shouldn't turn it on and off all the time but It will last longer if you shut it down when you don't use it for a while. A spin up from time to time does not stress the bearings as much as a 24/7 run. My advice: Turn power saving off but shut the computer down (or put it to sleep) over night or when you don't use it for a couple of hours.
And, like CD's, You can also unmount the large drives you don't use regularly. Unmounted drives will only spin up if you run an installer or the disk utility (with it you can mount your drives again).
And, like CD's, You can also unmount the large drives you don't use regularly. Unmounted drives will only spin up if you run an installer or the disk utility (with it you can mount your drives again).
Thanks macz1, I never thought of un-mounting them. Now I can have my system and TM drives go all the time and shut down my storage drive which is used every few days.
Any idea how to remount them though?? 😕
Any idea how to remount them though?? 😕
This is not quite true. The evidence available is that the total life (in hours) of a hard drive before failure is extended by a large margin by running all the time. However, that is total life, and if you are only spinning up a drive once a day or week to back up to it, for perhaps half an hour, you will get more life out of it by shutting it down, despite the total hour life of the hard drive being less. Confusing, but true.