Turn Off HDDs

[ZeroAquaduct]

Is it good to spin down my HDD when not in use, via the Power Schemes in WinXP? I heard that I get longer life from my HDD if I keep it spinning because it won't expand/contract (because of the heat that it generates).

[aftermath]

old windows would never recover from the disks swiching off on my pcs so now i dont dont no if it will wake up
just put a fan to blow air on to it

[JigPu]

The allmighy lightbulb theory....

I don't have any HARD proof that keeping it spinning would increase it's lifespan, however I do believe it should.

I have my HD set to spin-down after 5 minutes of inactivity (my dad has gone insane over reducing the power bill), and it just seems like making the HD spin back up after it just finished spining down couldn't be very good for it. And it allways manages to spin down RIGHT before I get on.... Perhaps another benifit of leaving it on..

JigPu

[MoPMatrix]

spin down after 5min?!?!?
god lord, how long this HD lasted u? or should I ask u how many did u go threw in the last year? :P

[Mike360000]

Shoot, it's probably costing you more to spin up and down those HDs every 5 min than it would be to let them run about 35 or 40 mins b4 letting them spin down for a longer time. Ain't saving no money or power with that!

Cheers,
Mike Lamb

[MoPMatrix]

Originally posted by Mike360000
Shoot, it's probably costing you more to spin up and down those HDs every 5 min than it would be to let them run about 35 or 40 mins b4 letting them spin down for a longer time. Ain't saving no money or power with that!

Cheers,
Mike Lamb

Thats what I was thinking :P
That and the cost to replace it like once a month :P

[Mike360000]

Yep, the whole thing is a little ridiculas.
If his dad is really getting on him that bad to save power, I'd say his dad is a liberal nut case! (No offense JigPu.) Some things just don't do as well, once you go down past a certain point.

I've personally seen liberal nutcases, thinking they were saving energy, spend more on gas and gadgets, by far, than they would have ever saved by just using the intended product normally. Sad thing is, these peeps then go on to criticize me and others for being wasteful!

Cheers,
Mike

[Diggrr]

Personally, I wish I'd never found that option in IBM's software.
I have a pair of Deathstar 75GXP's in raid 0, and if the drives are powered down when I shut off the machine, then I get "insert bootable disk" on the next power up.
I have to TOTALLY shut off power for 10 seconds for it to reset correctly, and the error goes away.
Stupid IBM, the option won't turn off either. It looks like it does, but the drives still power down.

I've got the fluid bearing Maxtor's now, and condidering that they'd be skidding to a stop all the time (assuming loss of fluid circulation would be loss of bearing), no way in **** will I put them into standby all the time. My computer is on all day, so they'd be parking and unparking all day too.

Just my 2 pesos

[JigPu]

No guys, it's me with the 5-minute setting :eek: Our computer is used pretty heavly by the seven members of our household, so the HD dosen't spin down that much atucally (probably every hour or so :rolleyes: ). And when you get off, people usually either get on right away (thus no time for the HD to spin down), or stay off for an hour or two.

And this power saving urge is a late-breaking devolopment after the $200 power bills three months ago. Now, we're down to just over $100. If we get under, I may be able to convince him to let me keep the thing running all night again (SETI has suffered greatly without night crunching!).

And this HD has lasted the whole power crunch time and I hope it lasts longer. It's been going pretty much 24/7 for the two or three years we've had this computer, and I must say I'm impressed at least with the HD that HP gave me! :D I want another one!

JigPu

[Ghost68]

well convince him that having the monitor (assuming its capable) to auto suspend when not in use (ak after 5 min of inactivity) will save him more money in the long run.... a.) it saves *alot* more power that way b.)it will save him from having to prematurely buy an new hardrive.... Good Luck


and on a side note depending on how much you spend on your electric bill (in kilowatt hours) i think you will be surprised at how little the computer actually costs a month... mine costs about $11.50 to run all month (24/7) and its usin a 400 watt power supply.... but my monitor on the other hand costs around $15 a month to have on a little over 15 hours a day... (as compared to $9 when i have it auto suspend after 20 min of inactivity...)

i have to find the formula ill find it and edit this post in a little while

/edit
Formula = (Hours on per day) * (how many watts your ps is)/1000kWh = equals how many kiloWatthours

example 24*400/1000kWh=9.6kWh

now to find out how much it costs per day...
first find out how much you pay per kWh (its on the power bill)
now multiply this number by how many kWh you computer uses per day

i pay US$0.0404 per kWh (and yes thats 4.04 cents)
so $0.0404*9.6=$0.38784 or rounded $0.39 per day
now multiply this by how many days there are in the current month (im gonna do july cause june is almost over...)
31*$0.38784=12.02304 so in the month of july my computer will cost me a little over $12

more to come later i gotta go to work ;)

[arhines]

I would think that the on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off cycle would damage it quite a lot actually - i remember hearing something from ibm about their drives only sustaining 10,000 on-off cycles or something...or maybe i'm just conveniently "remembering" that...i dunno.