What activity is hardest on a hard drive

[tomster2300]

Originally Posted by Hi Ho I agree with you. I wouldn't trust my backup CD's in a car at all. I was just pointing out that CD's aren't that fragile.

Ditto -- just keep your backups at home in a case in a drawer some place.

[glc]

To clarify a bit more - pressed CD's are pretty rugged, but CDR's are nowhere near as durable. The pits are molded into pressed CD's, but burned into CDR's. Heat and light will degrade CDR's. CDRW's are even more sensitive.

[Lamilia]

Originally Posted by Hi Ho There are a lot of super reliable products from companies that aren't exactly losing money. Just look at Honda and Toyota (I know, not exaclty PC related ). It makes sense to makea good product especially when it comes to hard drives that can end up holding critical data. If my hard drive died at the end of the warranty (1 year) and took all of my pictures and documents with it I wouldn't be going out to buy another of the same brand.

this is sort of related:
they can make tires that don't pop but then tire companies would lose money so they don't
they don't make ciggerettes that are fire safe (go out after you don't take a few puffs every once and a while) and the paper is cheaper than non fire safe ciggeretes
power windows that have switches that go down (child safe) are cheaper yet no american cars are have these.
everyone is after our money you just can't win

[azscary]

I am convinced that starting up and shutting down the PC is the hardest on the HD.

The disk is one of the few actual MECHANICAL parts of the computer. I feel mechanical stress (as opposed to non-mechanical stress) is much more wearing on the parts.

All of the IT departments I have ever worked for insisted the PC's be left on 24/7. There were other reasons for doing this such as network pushes for security updates, however the primary reason was always to reduce the amount of wear on the HDD.

Just my 2¢ worth.

[azscary]

Originally Posted by waiting Since the life of a hard drive is unknown.... it becomes necessary to back up everything we need. Do you back up on another exterior hard drive? Or do you back up using CD's or DVD's? Which is the most permanent back up?

I have a second identical drive that I copy all of my files to once a week. If I get a new file that is exceptionally critical I copy that over right away.

If the main drive dies, I can reformat or replace it and still have my data on the other disk.

[waiting]

azscary: What are "IT" departments?

[Cricket]

IT = Information Technology.

Cricket

[azscary]

Yes.

Information Technology

[tomster2300]

They're the people who fix technology when it breaks in a business.

[waiting]

Originally Posted by glc To clarify a bit more - pressed CD's are pretty rugged, but CDR's are nowhere near as durable. The pits are molded into pressed CD's, but burned into CDR's. Heat and light will degrade CDR's. CDRW's are even more sensitive.

What are pressed CD's? Where do we buy pressed CD's? How do pressed CD's compare with DVD+R's?

[Cricket]

Pressed CDs are the music CDs you buy at the music store or the CDs that software comes on.

Cricket

[waiting]

Can I burn photos on a pressed CD? Are "all" music CD's - pressed CD's?
Is there such a thing as a "pressed DVD+R disc"? Thanks for your previous tips.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by waiting Can I burn photos on a pressed CD?

No, you can't burn anything onto a pressed CD.

Originally Posted by waiting Are "all" music CD's - pressed CD's?

Yes, all legal authentic music CDs are pressed.

Originally Posted by waiting Is there such a thing as a "pressed DVD+R disc"?

There are no recordable pressed DVDs either. Pressed DVDs are the movie DVDs you buy or rent. Software is starting to come out on pressed DVDs now.

Cricket

[Hi Ho]

Music CD's and DVD movies you buy in a store are not burned. It would increase production costs quite a bit if they had to burn each disc. Pressed CD's/DVD's are made from a master dye which has all of the pits that make up the data layer of a CD molded into it. The copies are stamped from this dye producing perfect copies in a fraction of a second per disc.

[allburnintegrated]

I don't really have any backups! I'm trusting all my stuff to my hdd. It won't be the end of the world if it fails though, I don't have anything really irreplaceable on my drive. I'm getting another identical hdd soon though and putting it in RAID 1 with my current drive.

[Kov-Ice]

RAID 1 will mirror your drives, this is true. While it will save you in the case of a hardware failure on one drive, the bad part about trusting RAID 1 as your only backup solution is that if you make any human error or if a file is corrupted, that will be present on both drives, too.

[waiting]

Backup question: Does anybody have any experience with Norton Ghost?

[Cricket]

I'm sure many of us here have used Ghost at one time or another. It's a good imaging program. Drive Image is another good one and Acronis True Image is yet another good choice.

What did you want to know about Ghost?

Cricket

[waiting]

Cricket: Is Ghost user friendly..........or do you have to be a tech? Is it necessary or recommended to partician my hard drive? I have approx 50GB free on my C drive.....I'm using NSW with goback on my computer....but goback's history at best is two weeks.....and its tempting to try Ghost but it looks complicated......

[waverider]

This may be a dumb question, but I am curious. Why is a "pressed" cd more durable than a "burned" cd ? Also does burning a cd actually involve heat or lasar ? Thanks

[Hi Ho]

This may be a dumb question, but I am curious. Why is a "pressed" cd more durable than a "burned" cd ? Also does burning a cd actually involve heat or lasar ? Thanks

The data layer in pressed CD's is physically molded into the disc. The data layer in burned CD's is chemical.

When you burn a CD the laser reacts with the chemicals in the data layer to create the "pits".

Here are some very good articles on CD's:

How CD's Work
How CD Burners Work

About the drive imaging. I believe the hard drive manufacturers offer free programs for ghosting drives. I have used Maxtors program and it was easy and worked fine.

[glc]

The free software only clones drives. It does not let you make a compressed image like Ghost and other imaging software.

[waiting]

HiHo: You wrote, "I have used Maxtors program and it was easy and worked fine." So now I have a question for you.....Once the backup is created on the Maxtor Exterior Drive, can we quickly restore the computer to the last backup?

[Digitalic]

Back to the basic question of what is hardest on the drive and I have to agree that graphics do require the drive to perform more read\write operations due to the amount of data they have to transfer, meaning, the read\write heads are under more stress. But even the most basic drive should give years of service if they are maintained, mainly defragging, which will write the files contiguously which translates to the read\write heads not having to travel as much.

Concerning the issue of whether or not to allow your drives to run continuously or shut down. I found Panama Red`s explanation interesting and thought provoking concerning the bearing stress. Considering his experience I`d have to ask. Is it more stressful on a motor to start up and shutdown than to allow it to run?

Also, when the drive is shutdown the read\write heads go into a "park mode". Now, when the drive is spinning the platters are protected from the read\write heads by a very small cushion of air but the shutdown\startup process subjects the platters to possible contact with the read\write heads which could cause physical damage and data loss.

Just some thoughts to help clarify\complicate the subject.

BTW, my systems run 24\7. So I`m of the belief that it is better to maintain a constant heat\stress factor.

[Iniamyen]

If a hard drive can survive in a DELL, it can survive anything. Among others I'm sure, DELL likes to mount their harddrives vertically. Now, try and tell me that turning your motor on and off a couple thousand times puts nearly as much wear & tear on it as having the transverse stress of the weight of the platter on it 24/7/365.

[Hi Ho]

HiHo: You wrote, "I have used Maxtors program and it was easy and worked fine." So now I have a question for you.....Once the backup is created on the Maxtor Exterior Drive, can we quickly restore the computer to the last backup?

I just used it to clone the drive onto another faster and larger hard drive. I didn't use it for backup.

[waiting]

Originally Posted by Hi Ho I just used it to clone the drive onto another faster and larger hard drive. I didn't use it for backup.

Did you clone the operating system?

[Hi Ho]

I cloned the entire drive. It allowed me to use the new hard drive without reinstalling anything.

[waiting]

Originally Posted by Hi Ho I cloned the entire drive. It allowed me to use the new hard drive without reinstalling anything.

That info is impressive....thanks for sharing it with me

[fredwest]

Hi guys,
Very interesting forum post indeed....

IMO one of the hardest (if not THE hardest) jobs a hard drive has to do is to have thousands of small files copied onto itself. This is a classic test used by reviewers to test the read/write speeds of drives & their data transfer speeds. It puts an enormous stress on the drive to have to write such a huge amount of small files for what can be a prolonged period. I guess if you do this on a regular basis then your drive won't last as long as you would hope purely due to mechanical failure.

Defraging is also pretty intense but doing it 'little but often' IMO is the best solution for both data optimisation & hard drive life.

Also on older drives there is the possibility of 'stiction'. This is a hybrid term of 'STatic frICTION' & is the initial force needed to overcome friction. Only once have I seen this in PCs. I had to give an old 1Gb drive a slight tap to get it spinning, whereupon it worked great. (Picture the drive now in a case and every time I booted up I had to belt the case to get the drive to spin up & you get the picture )

Finally, I reckon that before you reach the life of your drive you'll need to upgrade anyways as you find you've run out of space. This has happened to me several times, although I had the COD on a few hard drives too .