[filmscanners] Re: keeping the 16bit scans

["Arthur Entlich" <artistic-1@shaw.ca>]

Sorry to bring this to the forefront of this discussion, but we are all
talking through our hats.

Perhaps someone has documented how turning a hard drive on and off
alters its failure rate, relative to keeping it one continually...  but
I haven't seen it.  I'm sure each drive is different, dependent upon its
size, mass, design, the constancy of the electrical current, the power
supply, the temperature of the drive, ventilation, plane it is used in,
bearing type, balance specs, etc, etc.

It would seem logically, that the more time that lapses where the drive
is not in use, the less effect the single on/off cycle has.  As an
example, if I only use the drive once a month, I suspect the wear on the
drive from running it for that month versus using it for a few hours
once a month, would be different that if I was turning it on 4 times a
day for 30 minutes at a time.

I am convinced that spin down on a regular "energy saving" basis using a
"time without use" basis while the computer is on is detrimental to most
hard drives, and I have stopped this function on my system.

I even wonder how much energy is saved under those conditions.

However, I do turn my system off when it is going to be left unused for
several hours, and whether it saves the hard drive or not, it certainly
saves energy.

Art


LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:

> As I have said, much of this is basically personal choices and trade-offs.
> The key problem with discussions like this is that it is often the case - as
> it is now - that one party is talking at a general level while the other is
> talking on a very specific personal level.  There is an ecological fallacy
> that takes place when one attempts to generalize based on individual cases
> or very small samples such as a few people's personal experiences just as
> there is when one attempts to refute a generalization by citing individual
> counter-examples.  When I say that turning a HD on and off has a negative
> effect in terms of wear and tear similar to that which might take place if
> one left the HD on all the time, I am speaking on the average and not to any
> particular individual case.  Unless, you are prepared to say that turning a
> HD on and off does not contribute to its wear and tear, the fact that you
> personally only do so once a week is sort of irrelevant as a refutation of
> my point. If you backed up or archived once a day every day, woulod you
> still be able to clain that the wear and tear of turning the drive on and
> off is less than keeping it on all the time during that week?
>
> I think that the electricity use and savings as well as differences in
> electric bills is probably not really that significant in most cases for
> most people; but that is a different argument than the wear and tear
> argument.  That you trun your system off every night is probably the
> governing factor which would justify turning off the HD since there is no
> point to leaving the HD running if the system it is connected to is turned
> off.
>
> In short, your work patterns and beliefs make you confortable with turning
> on or unplugging your external hard drive when you want to use it and
> turning it off or unplugging it when you are done.  I cannot argue with
> that,  I cannot convince you that the justifications you offer may not be
> true, or if they are they may not be significant, or they may be true but
> result in generating things which may have an equally negative effect.  All
> I can do is point out that in general there are equally valid justifications
> for other forms of behavior that others offer and believe in which suggest
> that alternative work patterns may be equally effective.
>


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