Are you sure about that? And why do you think so? I don't want to sound disrespectful or so, I'm just curious, because I've heard just about anything from "you worry to much, modern hard drives can take more strain than the average user ever puts on them" to "most hard disks are finished after five years if they're used a lot"...
Are you sure about that? And why do you think so? I don't want to sound disrespectful or so, I'm just curious, because I've heard just about anything from "you worry to much, modern hard drives can take more strain than the average user ever puts on them" to "most hard disks are finished after five years if they're used a lot"...
I think that is probably true for desktops but not for laptops. I started a thread about configuring for laptops and the recommendation seemed to be not to sync at one minute internals. That is consistent with my experience with SETI@HOME on a laptop.
I currently have my laptop set to sync every 20 minutes.
In my opinion, shutting off and starting again put a lot more strain on a drive than reading/writing. I've never used the "shut harddrive after xx mins" options off any kind. Up to date I do not have any DC related HDD crashes. Going on my 7th year now. Started from SETI@home like most of us. :)
I deactivated the "switch off hard drive" function after reading a related topic here on the message board (since then I'm also careful about not switching on the PC when it's to cold, etc) but what do you mean by "laptops are a different subject"? I mean, it's logical that they're not as "tough" as desktop hard disks and therefore less suitable to be used very heavily. But quite a few of us want to use their notebooks for distributed computing (not everyone can afford a really big farm, and then a nice dual core notebook can make a huge difference when it comes to computing power) so what would you recommend to keep the risk of failure as low as possible?
Actually I would think that a drive designed specifically for notebooks would be "tougher", simply because it's going to see a harsher usage environment than a desktop or server would. This would include generally higher ambient temperatures and less efficient cooling when operating as well as rougher treatment physically (more vibration, impacts, and changes in attitude when spinning, etc.)
Probably the best strategy for maximizing any notebooks service life is to treat it like the precision instrument it is. ;-)
Are you sure about that? And
)
Are you sure about that? And why do you think so? I don't want to sound disrespectful or so, I'm just curious, because I've heard just about anything from "you worry to much, modern hard drives can take more strain than the average user ever puts on them" to "most hard disks are finished after five years if they're used a lot"...
RE: Are you sure about
)
I think that is probably true for desktops but not for laptops. I started a thread about configuring for laptops and the recommendation seemed to be not to sync at one minute internals. That is consistent with my experience with SETI@HOME on a laptop.
I currently have my laptop set to sync every 20 minutes.
In my opinion, shutting off
)
In my opinion, shutting off and starting again put a lot more strain on a drive than reading/writing. I've never used the "shut harddrive after xx mins" options off any kind. Up to date I do not have any DC related HDD crashes. Going on my 7th year now. Started from SETI@home like most of us. :)
My P3 system is running on 9 years old HDD: http://einsteinathome.org/host/555517
Laptops are of course a different subject.
I deactivated the "switch off
)
I deactivated the "switch off hard drive" function after reading a related topic here on the message board (since then I'm also careful about not switching on the PC when it's to cold, etc) but what do you mean by "laptops are a different subject"? I mean, it's logical that they're not as "tough" as desktop hard disks and therefore less suitable to be used very heavily. But quite a few of us want to use their notebooks for distributed computing (not everyone can afford a really big farm, and then a nice dual core notebook can make a huge difference when it comes to computing power) so what would you recommend to keep the risk of failure as low as possible?
Actually I would think that a
)
Actually I would think that a drive designed specifically for notebooks would be "tougher", simply because it's going to see a harsher usage environment than a desktop or server would. This would include generally higher ambient temperatures and less efficient cooling when operating as well as rougher treatment physically (more vibration, impacts, and changes in attitude when spinning, etc.)
Probably the best strategy for maximizing any notebooks service life is to treat it like the precision instrument it is. ;-)
Alinator