Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (
More info?)
"dg" <dan_gus@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:YTYCc.1186$xx1.478@newssvr27.news.prodigy.com...
> I leave them as "ALWAYS ON". By the way, I think all RAID controllers in
> existence leave the drives powered up all the time-the folks who make high
> end raid cards are very conscious of reliability so I suspect it is OK to
do
> so.
>
> If it makes you feel any better, I have been around computers for a long
> time and in my experience, the drive lifetime is not affected by leaving
the
> drive on ALL the time 24-7. It wouldn't be out of the question to
theorize
> that turning a drive on and off all the time is actually harder on the
drive
> than just leaving it powered up. But I could be wrong. Don't believe
that
> any treatment you give your drive will make it last longer-any drive could
> go at any time.
That is the neverending argument, and I've never heard convincing evidence
to support either method as being superior. A friend leaves his machines on
24/7 and I turn mine off at night only. Neither of us have had more than
spotty HD problems over the years, and for me in the past 10 years or so
only one Deathstar has failed out of 13 drives currently running on three
computers (six are in mobile racks for Ghosting, rotated once per week, and
aren't powered up but once every six weeks for 15 minutes).