For those with Notebooks who crunch

Hey guys,

I just read over papounet's post about losing a hard drive potentially of crunching. I just wanted to start a thread of what I do and allow people at add more possibilites. I have had 2 laptops crunching for me since the beginning 24/7 with no problems so far.

Option 1 - Run seti off of a Flash Media stick. I have a Sony z505 that I have a 8 meg memory stick in the memory slot and just run seti off of that. I did many tests to see if there was any time difference and found NONE!!

Option 2 - Run a Ram Drive. Here is the link to the Drive I use I purchased the software but the trial allows you 100 or so turn on and off's. I have Seti automatically start when the computer loads and it is automatically saved hour or so to the hard drive. You can set the variables to your liking. When I would just let the computer run and wasn't using it I actually didn't have it save to my hard drive at all (was always on the net) as to not access the HD. If I lost a unit here or there that was fine for me. In 18 months using it I have lost maybe 10 units cause it isn't on a uninterupt. power supply.

If you have more ideas don't hesitate to suggest. I know that Arkaine23 suggested that you make a CD but I wanted to minimize the breakable parts working on the computer. One more benifit to do this is that my Vaio temps went down TONS!!! Cause the HD was spinning a lot the laptop was hotter. With the drives off it has cooled them down considerabley.

Oh, I just found that link so am going to chech out to make sure that it is infact the program that I am currently using

Seti is not rough on the hard drive at all compared to other applications. The drive in my laptop failed, but that was after being on 24/7 for nearly 3 years. I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you.

Ya I agree but IMO if the drive can be stopped as I don't use the computer for LONG periods of time then I wand it stopped Also saves some power which eventually turns into $

I've used both the ramdisk nt and a flash stick. Both work about the same, but I'd prefer the flash stick just in case the ramdisk software doesn't save properly, etc.

thanks Cuper.

just come back from vacation and found your msg.

will look into it.

best

Hi Guys !!

I agree with TC. I run seti on 2 laptops and have been doing
so for soon to be 2 years and haven't had any problems at all.

The Wizard

I think you're more likely to wear out the little heatsink fan before the hard disk.

I would agree. Fortunately my laptop has an older P3 850 and the fans only run occasionally, even while seti is going.

I've been running Setif over 3 years, starting on a Vaio and now on a Dell Inspiron.

No problems yet, although the fan noise can be a bit annoying. Just give Seti a couple of minutes and the CPU heats right up.

same here. i had been running SETI from several laptops. there's 3 running 24/7 for 1+ to 2+ years. not a problem at all. also, if a HD failed after 2-3yr of 24/7 time, i wouldn't surprised nor be upset anyway.

I am on my second or third HDD for one of my Dell Inspirons, which runs SETI 24/7 for 2 years now. I think it's heat from the processor indirectly heating up the HDD. First two drives were IBMs... (first one did not technically fail, but BSODs on start-up increased, so I pulled it preventatively when a good offer came on a 5400 rpm drive. Oh well that one crashed after 10 months and now I am on a Toshiba, which even though smaller (9.5mm vs 12.5mm) packs more capacity (40GB vs 20 or 32) and seems to heat up less

Yo

I have had a fujit. drive go bad on me and that is when I decided to go this route with seti.