Kill a Watt(tm) power meters

Posted by on October 30, 2009, 4:28 pm

On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:48:05 -0700, Smitty Two

> gfretwell@aol.com wrote:

>> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:56:13 -0700, Smitty Two

>> >And I'd like to know when the hard drive study was done, and whether the
>> >current generation of drives has been subjected to any similar study. I
>> >personally doubt the validity of the original study. Anyway, there's a
>> >lot more going on inside a computer than a hard drive, and leaving it on
>> >all the time is unquestionably detrimental to the electronics.

>>
>>
>> Ther study was done at IBM Rochester in the 90s and primarily focused
>> on the 3.5" "Lightning" drive. Hard drives are the most likely thing
>> to fail in a PC and the thing that causes the most grief. (data loss
>> and extended downtime)

>So my choices are:
>1. Turn the computer off, extending the life of everything in it with
>the possible exception of the drive. Back up my data.
>2. Leave the computer on 24/7, shortening the life of everything in it
>with the possible exception of the drive. Don't back up my data, but
>hope I can postpone the inevitable day when I will lose it all.
>That's a choice I can make faster than an electron can travel an inch.

You missed the point. If you are walking away from your machine more
than 8 hours you turn it off. Otherwise the study says leave it on.
How many times do you power your machine off and on in a day?
How often do you back up your data?

Posted by on November 1, 2009, 12:02 am

wrote:

>Then the most common
>failure is the bearings, not anything electronic

Why do you believe that?
I have close over a dozen bad drives here and they virtually all spun
up and ran quietly. Some wouldn't come ready and some would report in
fine but fail to format.
If I had to pick one common denominator it would be a Western Digital
label on it. They usually start by losing sectors and quickly degrade
to the point that they won't get through a format. WD Diagnostic says
"replace drive". I did get a few replaced on warranty.
I have taken a few apart and they are pristine looking inside.

When I was at IBM I saw hundreds of bad drives, noisy, did not mean
they weren't working.

Posted by Tony on November 1, 2009, 10:50 am

gfretwell@aol.com wrote:

> wrote:
>

>> Then the most common
>> failure is the bearings, not anything electronic

>
> Why do you believe that?

Because every failed HD I opened showed signs of abrasion where the head
touched the drive disk. Just my personal experience, granted it is
limited. I should have said most common problems *that I have seen* are
mechanical and not electronic. Then again none of them were mine and
may have been subjected to physical shock, IE the "Fonzie Fix".

Posted by Mark on November 1, 2009, 11:41 am

> gfretw...@aol.com wrote:

> > wrote:

> >> Then the most common
> >> failure is the bearings, not anything electronic

> > Why do you believe that?

> Because every failed HD I opened showed signs of abrasion where the head
> touched the drive disk. =A0Just my personal experience, granted it is
> limited. =A0I should have said most common problems *that I have seen* ar=

> mechanical and not electronic. =A0Then again none of them were mine and
> may have been subjected to physical shock, IE the "Fonzie Fix".

when the drive is turned off normally, the heads are "parked" on a
"landing zone" so wear there should not impact any data...

also most computer drives are set up like a screen saver, if the drive
is not used for 15 minutes (or whatever time the timer is set for) it
parks and spins down automatically..

Mark

Posted by Tony on November 1, 2009, 1:38 pm

Mark wrote:

>> gfretw...@aol.com wrote:

>>> wrote:
>>>> Then the most common
>>>> failure is the bearings, not anything electronic
>>> Why do you believe that?

>> Because every failed HD I opened showed signs of abrasion where the head
>> touched the drive disk. Just my personal experience, granted it is
>> limited. I should have said most common problems *that I have seen* are
>> mechanical and not electronic. Then again none of them were mine and
>> may have been subjected to physical shock, IE the "Fonzie Fix".

>
> when the drive is turned off normally, the heads are "parked" on a
> "landing zone" so wear there should not impact any data...

I didn't say the drive was parked. I've seen some idiots pound on their
pc when it would freeze up. If they didn't hurt anything, a few times I
found it just needed all the dust cleaned out, it was overheating.

> also most computer drives are set up like a screen saver, if the drive
> is not used for 15 minutes (or whatever time the timer is set for) it
> parks and spins down automatically..

I've yet to see that as the default setting in any Windows I have used.
Most people don't know that setting exists. I've always had to
manually change mine to that setting. One exception is if it's a laptop
then that would be the normal setting... to save battery life.

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