I just lost my main audio library hard drive as well. No chance of
recovery, but I have been wanting to re-edit from scratch anyway. So
sitting here for the next month editing and building stuff is what I
guess I am up to. Unless I fall into a project that I can not turn
down.
I have run hard drives for fax and v-mail for a number of years and
it does not seem to matter the rpm or physical size. They all seem
to die for me from 4-6 years on continual spin. That is unless some
project becomes important and very time critical. Then the drive
seems to know to die then.
Rich Peet
--- In Walter Knapp <>
wrote:
> Jim Morgan wrote:
> > Sorry about your drive. I was wondering how often you start it up.
> >
> > Some saw it is better to leave them on all or most of the time. I
leave mine
> > on almost all the time while my wife turns hers off nightly.
> >
> > Nither of us has had a drive failure, but we upgrade every couple
of years
> > so the drives really don't run all that long.
>
> The last actual drive failure I had was when I was using a Mac
Plus.
> Quite a long while ago. I have drives still in service that are 8-
10
> years old, though everything in my machine is now less than two
years
> old. I have had a few failures where a directory got corrupted too,
but
> the disk was fine when reformatted. Quantum drives are some of the
most
> durable made, and I've used them for many years, but even the best
can
> fail. I mostly replace drives to gain capacity. But with 5 72 gig
drives
> on my G4 (was 3 internal, 2 external, now 3 internal, 1 external
after
> moving one inside to replace the failed one) I'm up to quite a
capacity.
> I expect I'll replace the failed drive with the same size.
>
> I keep mine running a lot. I may put the machine to sleep at night
in
> warmer weather particularly, and had it programmed to shut down for
a
> half hour at 4 AM, to insure the system got reloaded (that cuts
buildup
> of errors in memory). These actions also gave the disks a chance to
cool
> somewhat, they get fairly warm running constantly. But, they never
> cooled completely. What may have done this one in finally is that
my son
> was shutting down my computer after getting my email downloaded
each day
> this last week. That gave the disk a chance to fully cool each time.
>
> Putting the machine to sleep puts everything low power, but does
not
> completely shut the machine down. The components that keep running
keep
> the internal temp slightly warmer than otherwise.
>
> Macs are not near as hot inside as PC's, but with three high cap
disks
> inside I have a aux vent fan on the case to cut the heat a bit.
It's
> nowhere near the rated temp levels for the disks.
>
> Running absolutely continuously does have some risks that when, for
some
> reason you do shut down the bearings will fail suddenly. On the
other
> hand others have reported that frequent shutdowns were hard on the
> bearings too.
>
> Only in service in a highly active enterprise class server is there
> normally any problem with the rest of the mechanical parts of a HD.
> Though I hate software that flogs the HD a lot. The Quantum drives
I use
> are one of the choice drives for such servers.
>
> All boils down to trying to keep things backed up. And paying a
little
> closer attention to the noise. The bearings did give some warning,
> though not seriously noisy.
>
> When I finally completely give up on recovery, I'll probably take
the
> disk apart and see what actually failed. I did pop the seal
already, and
> no metal shavings or anything like that evident. So, I know it's
not heads.
>
> Walt
>
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