hard drives

[deggers316]

its said leaving hard drives running gives them longer lives,
on a laptop on eco mode it turns hard drive off every 15 mins (if just ticking over) is this not bad for the hard drive, a case if good for battery life against bad for hard drive life

[ChuckFickens]

I'd be far more concerned with not knocking the laptop and handling it carefully then I would be about power saving effecting the life of the drive. a hard drive will generally outlast the useful life of any laptop with no problem at all (regardless of if you use power saving on it) if it's treated carefully.

[deggers316]

thanks chuck
im careful about handling laptop, never move it unnecessarily and if i can with it off.

[bert_h]

It's not the disc starting and stopping that shortens the life. It's the thermal cycling - warming up when switched on, and cooling down when switched off - that causes degradation and eventually failure. For laptops, it's a pity about the battery, though. It depends on what proportion of the time you would normally want to have it switched on. For mains powered, there's not very much in it, and you can hear an argument either way, but I think the consensus is that less pollution is caused in generating the energy to keep it warm on standby (or ecosave, or whatever) than in manufacturing the new one that otherwise you'll have to buy a few years sooner.