Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 09:55:23 -0500 (CDT) From: "Valeri Galtsev" <galtsev@kicp.uchicago.edu> To: "RW" <rwmaillists@googlemail.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Best kind of hard drive for heavy use? Message-ID: <12225.128.135.52.6.1473864923.squirrel@cosmo.uchicago.edu> In-Reply-To: <20160914143327.3b7d3c36@gumby.homeunix.com> References: <42.56.05022.D3A48D75@dnvrco-oedge02> <20160913213649.3a3f26b2@archlinux.localdomain> <0d1b8dba-3292-9991-ea7d-f160c25090c8@netfence.it> <20160914051806.297c0c3f@archlinux.localdomain> <20160914143327.3b7d3c36@gumby.homeunix.com>
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On Wed, September 14, 2016 8:33 am, RW via freebsd-questions wrote: > On Wed, 14 Sep 2016 05:18:06 +0200 > Ralf Mardorf via freebsd-questions wrote: > >> On Tue, 13 Sep 2016 22:38:55 +0200, Andrea Venturoli wrote: >> >(Speaking of WD Green, not WD in general) it is true, unless you run >> >their utility (DOS only!) which disables this "feature". >> >However the drives will tend to fail in a short time all the same. >> >> That perhaps was true for some older drives, that spin down after a >> few seconds, but it anyway required something to wake up the drives >> again. Howvere, it's untrue for those drives that are just a few >> years old. My spins down after 30 minutes, and stays a sleep , if no >> evil software touches it. > > > Drives are typically rated for 300k load-cycles, so at 30 minutes > it's a non-issue - running the drive cooler and avoiding wear on > the moving parts probably extends its life. > Disagree. It is actually an opposite. Spinning down is the same as turning the drive off: heads are spring loaded and are pushed away from platters by the air which acts as viscous liquid when head flies fast close to platter surface. Stop this motion, head will land on surface, for this reason heads are moved to parking position before drive is spun down. To park heads they release arm with heads, it is pulled by the spring into "parking" position, and stops there by banging into the stopper pin. This is a big stress, and mechanism can withstand only this number of such bangs. To the contrary, keeping platters spinning does not apply any stress onto any mechanical parts, except bearings, which can live very long, especially if platter assembly is very well balanced and bearings are well designed and manufactured. I believe, there was long thread somewhere and this in particular was discussed there too. In any case, "consumer" grade drives never come to composite time of use like 8-10 years (drives on many servers are up and always hot for about this long), so no one would care of the fact "consumer grade" drives experience stress banging arm with heads on stopper, no one would care much for these drives to have well balanced rotor (platters) and bearing of extra high longevity. No one expects them to be used that intensely, and they are often getting thrown away 3 -4 years down their easy life. Just my $0.02 Valeri > >> I don't use gvfs, smartd and similar software >> that touches the drives and enforce a spin up, directly after the >> drives goes asleep. > > Are you saying that smartd does that when it's only monitoring? And do > you mean all drives, or just the one the OS is on? > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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