Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mailrus!ames!apple!voder!pyramid!ctnews!starfish!tims From: tims@starfish.Convergent.COM (Tim Simmons) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Leaving Hard-drives on Message-ID: <1119@starfish.Convergent.COM> Date: 24 Jul 89 21:42:27 GMT References: Organization: Convergent Technologies, San Jose, CA Lines: 27 From article , by tantuico@andromeda.rutgers.edu.rutgers.edu (Samuel B Tantuico): > > My friend says that it's better to leave a hard-drive on because > it will cause less wear and tear. Okay, but he's got an IBM-PC. > Does the same hold true for a Macintosh?... internal and external? > Yes! it is usually better to leave a hard drive on, it makes no difference whether your system is an IBM a Mac or an Amiga, the drive technology is the same in all systems. The reason this is true is because ~85% of the wear and tear on a drive is caused by powering the drive on and off. During this process the read/write heads contact the recording media, thereby causing wear on both the heads and the disc. This assumes that you use your system every day. If you only use your system once a week or less you might be better off turning it off each time, because the drive motor also has a life expectancy (about 100,000 hours) leaving it on with such low use does not make up for the extended motor usage. But it would make up for it if you use your system a lot. -- ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] TIM SIMMONS (408)434-2843 Unisys Network Computing Group - San Jose CA tims@starfish.convergent.com