🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Jul.23.19.59.42.1989.29681@galaxy.rutgers.edu> tantuico@andromeda (Samuel B Tantuico) writes:
>
>My friend says that it's better to leave a hard-drive on because
>it will cause less wear and tear.  Okay, but he's got an IBM-PC.
>Does the same hold true for a Macintosh?... internal and external?

This hoary old chestnut again! I doubt that there was general consensus on
what the better policy is the last time this was raised on the net. Rodime
140 Plus (and 1400RX HD assembly) users will have probably discovered that
their drives like to be left ON. When my drive cools down, it has problems
spinning up to speed when next switched on. Sometimes I have to turn the
drive on and off several times (I counted 15 once!) before it spins up and
unlocks the heads. (Once upon a time half the problem was with the old Mac
Plus ROMS, but that has been fixed now. Thanks Apple Oz!) Once the drive
is nice and warm, there is no problem---it will restart reliably every
every time after being powered down. Obviously, the drive spindle is
siezing up when cold. I have heard of drives that sieze up so badly that
they won't even start spinning. In any case, I gather that having to
kick start a drive like that can cause more spindle wear than leaving it
on. What's more,the motor is going to get stressed more as it tries to
get the reluctant platters going. Furthermore, I'm told that frequent
warmup/cool down cycles don't do much good for electronic components.
Then again, I'm not an EE so I'm probably talking through my hat....

-- bl




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Benjamin Y H Lian             ACSnet: ben@tasis.utas.oz
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and can stress the drive motor