Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site sci.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!amdcad!cae780!weitek!sci!raymund
From: raymund@sci.UUCP (Raymund Galvin)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: "Parking" the heads on hard disks
Message-ID: <144@sci.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Jan-86 14:53:49 EST
Article-I.D.: sci.144
Posted: Tue Jan 21 14:53:49 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Jan-86 21:02:56 EST
References: <659@isrnix.UUCP> <1322@tekgvs.UUCP>
Organization: Silicon Compilers, Inc., San Jose, CA
Lines: 23
Xref: watmath net.micro:13566 net.micro.pc:6630

In article <1322@tekgvs.UUCP>, keithe@tekgvs.UUCP (Keith Ericson) writes:
> In article <659@isrnix.UUCP> mr@isrnix.UUCP (michael regoli) writes:
> >]:[ ]:[
> >
> >
> >how many  folks  out  there  "park"  your  read/write  heads
> >*daily* when you power down your pc's? 
> >
> I *never* power down my PC. And it's 'cause I have problems sometimes
> getting the 10 meg hard disk to come up to speed when I power it up
> again. I can get it going, but I have to putz around with it. So I
> just *never* shut the thing off. I've been operating like this since
> last Thanksgiving.
> 
> keith
I don't think leaving the PC on indefinitely is a good idea. The MTBF
of typical small hard disks is usually between 5000 and 10000 hours.

This implies that a hard disk that has been powered up since 11/28/85
is 25% along the way to a failure.  These failures are the real nasty ones - 
where the drive needs to be replaced or repaired - not just a read error.

Ray Galvin