Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!pucc!EACELARI
From: EACELARI@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Edward A Celarier)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Leaving the hard disk on continuously
Message-ID: <5693@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 19 Jul 88 02:25:29 GMT
References: <12184@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: EACELARI@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 34
Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article

In article <12184@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, cotner@jif.berkeley.edu (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.
>
>When I bought my Mountain HardDrive, the disk came with a head parking utility
>for such a purpose.  Now I'm wondering how do I UNPARK the hard disk to use it
>again?
>
No, no.  The next time you issue any instruction to the disk,
it will unpark itself.  In fact, the PARK utility I have brings
the CPU to a grinding halt after it parks the disk, precisely
to avoid this happening!
 
I would not place bets on leaving the disk running all the time,
though I know plenty of people who do just that.  I am just a little
uncomfortable with the idea that some environmental problem may
crop up while I'm away (like jack-hammering on the floor below --
don't laugh, this happened to me).  Also momentary power failures
(e.g. during electrical storms) can make it go bonkers (you will have
to reboot anyway, since your controller will have gotten confused).
 
I wonder if there are some authoritative engrg. types out there who
can address this issue as something other than a question of "religion".
 
 
>PS:  I'm also leaving my monitor on 24 hours a day, but with the brightness
>switch dimmed to pitch black, operating under the same assumption that
>transients during power on is not good for the monitor either.  Is this
>a reasonable assumption, or should I just switch the monitor off?
 
Probably, you should just switch it off.  Transients won't be any good
for the things you can't see, too!