Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watdragon!violet!ajmyrvold
From: ajmyrvold@violet.waterloo.edu (Alan Myrvold)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Leaving the hard disk on continuously
Keywords: hard disk park - DON'T DO IT DAILY!!!! POWER OFF AT NIGHT!!!!
Message-ID: <7837@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 19 Jul 88 04:39:27 GMT
References: <12184@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: ajmyrvold@violet.waterloo.edu (Alan Myrvold)
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Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 47

In article <12184@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> cotner@bosco.berkeley.edu.UUCP 
(Carl Cotner) writes:
>After some recent discussions and testimonials on the net, I've been
>convinced that I should leave my PC and hard disk on 24 hours a day
>to spare it the trauma of being powerred it on and off each time I 
>use the machine.  
>
>Now I hear that I should park the heads of my disk whenever it is not in 
>use to prevent data corruption from a power surge.  That sounds reasonable.

I heard from an almost reliable source that parking the heads on a hard 
disk actually retracts the thingamabob that reads the disk. Acording to
my source, the joint which retracts the thingamabob becomes sloppy
after overuse, causing it to skip on the media surface, bringing up
chips of the magnetic media which scrape the **** out of the drive as
the head goes round.

Now if this is true, and I wonder myself, then parking the heads
of your disk daily (as opposed to only when it is shipped) actually
dramatically decreases the life of your hard disk.

The surges and transients due to turning the beast ON and OFF should 
be small enough to be handled by the computer. They also should 
be taken into consideration in the design of the PC.
On the other hand, the surges that COULD result during a thunderstorm
can ruin every part of your PC.

I NEVER use my 'puter during a thunderstorm. Doesn't really
make sense to do so. So it seems silly to leave a computer on
unattended in all weather conditions - if there is no function
that the computer is performing.

And for people who use there computers at work - if you are in an 
industrial setting then you might be surprised by the power 
surges that occur at night.

Basically I think it boils down to this : your computer equipment
should live an honourable life if treated as it was intended to 
be used. By the time it breaks down due to normal use (assuming
it survived the infant mortality period covered by warantee) it
is probably time to buy a new system anyway.


				Alan J. Myrvold
				ajmyrvold@violet.waterloo.edu
----
So how much $$$ do these .sig's cost to send anyway?