{"id":1429,"date":"2013-03-20T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T14:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nccomputertech.com\/?p=1429"},"modified":"2013-03-20T10:00:51","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T14:00:51","slug":"should-you-leave-a-hard-drive-running-when-its-not-in-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2013\/03\/20\/should-you-leave-a-hard-drive-running-when-its-not-in-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Should you leave a hard drive running when it's not in use?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From what I can tell, regularly turning a hard drive on and off can wear it down. But so can running it around the clock. For that matter, you can kill a drive by leaving it off and untouched for too long (I’ve actually done that).
\nIn other words, these things are fragile, and there’s little agreement on how best to treat them. I checked with two experts on hard drive technology, and got two very different answers to the leave on\/turn off controversy.
\n[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]
\nFred Langa has been writing about technology for decades. In a 2005 article, he wrote that “Most of the normal wear is on the drive bearings: They\u2019re always in use whenever the motor\u2019s spinning, even if the rest of the drive is idle. That\u2019s why letting the drive ‘spin down’ (stop rotation) during periods of idleness can extend the drive\u2019s life.”
\nI asked Langa if he still agreed with what he’d written nearly eight years ago. He did. (Full disclosure: Fred and I both write for Windows Secrets.)
\nBut I got a very different answer from Steve Gibson, author of SpinRite, a venerable and highly-regarded hard drive maintenance program. “Cycling the drive [turning it off and on] is definitely worse for it\u2026Almost everyone’s experience [with hard drive crashes is] that they turn on a computer that was working perfectly the last time it was in use [and it doesn’t work anymore].”
\nSo what’s my view?
\nIf there’s that much controversy between experts (and I’ve read plenty of others on both sides), the differences can’t be that great. Your chances of crashing that drive before you replace it with something better will be about equal either way.
\nAnd with that consideration, I vote for shutting the drive down when it’s not in use. You use less electricity, and that’s better for your monthly bills and for the planet.
\nvia Should you leave a hard drive running when it’s not in use? | PCWorld<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From what I can tell, regularly turning a hard drive on and off can wear it down. 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