From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Sep 6 22:21:18 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC88B16A41F for ; Tue, 6 Sep 2005 22:21:17 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from numard@meijome.net) Received: from sigma.octantis.com.au (ns2.octantis.com.au [207.44.189.124]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 708C443D48 for ; Tue, 6 Sep 2005 22:21:15 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from numard@meijome.net) Received: (qmail 30019 invoked from network); 7 Sep 2005 08:21:14 +1000 Received: from 203-173-33-12.dyn.iinet.net.au (HELO ?192.168.13.3?) (203.173.33.12) by sigma.octantis.com.au with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 7 Sep 2005 08:21:14 +1000 Message-ID: <431E1654.5020706@meijome.net> Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 08:21:08 +1000 From: Norberto Meijome User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 (Windows/20050716) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Roland Smith References: <431D9B74.7000409@meijome.net> <20050906193214.GA20117@slackbox.xs4all.nl> In-Reply-To: <20050906193214.GA20117@slackbox.xs4all.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: [OT] Life expectancy of powered down hard drives.... X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 22:21:18 -0000 Roland Smith wrote: >On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 11:36:52PM +1000, Norberto Meijome wrote: > > > >>I read somewhere (sorry, cant remember where) that hard drives fail if >>not powered up every so often (not sure of time frames, but the >>discussion was about tapes still being better for backups than hard >>drives if planning for long term storage). It was also mentioned a >>"knock on the centre of the drive" to bring it back to life (??). >> >>How much truth is in this? I have EIDE drives that I havent used in >>years and I just tested them and they work fine...but again, I've had an >>instance of a new drive, used twice to backup some info and then left >>untouched for 10 months, and it wouldn't even spin up... >> >> > >When a disk spins down, the heads move to the landing zone, stop >floating on an air-cushion that forms when the platters are spinning and >come in contact with the platters. > >So the disk platters are lubricated to prevent wear and tear during >stops/starts. Now in the past these lubricants used to become sticky >over time, preventing the drive from starting up. I'm not sure if it is >still a problem these days; my workstation is on 24/7. > > gotcha, thanks - I thought it could be an issue with older drives.