Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!oddjob!ncar!ames!zodiac!meridian!pkahn
From: pkahn@meridian.ads.com (Phil Kahn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Hard disk parking
Message-ID: <4974@zodiac.UUCP>
Date: 25 Jul 88 19:26:00 GMT
References: <321@intelisc.UUCP>
Sender: news@zodiac.UUCP
Reply-To: pkahn@meridian.UUCP (Phil Kahn)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mt. View, CA (415) 941-3912
Lines: 18

In article <321@intelisc.UUCP> rudolph%isc.intel.com (David Rudolph) writes:
>A question on hard disks: is it a big advantage to have a disk that
>auto-parks on power failures or on powerdown?  I have heard many good things
>about Cirrus drives, but the one reason I am hesitating to buy one is that I
>gather from talking to their people that to you have to explicitly run their
>program or run 'shutdown' to park the heads.  Is this likely to cause major
>problems if I have a power failure?
>

I strongly do not suggest buying any hard drive without auto-park.
Parking retracts the disk read head from the disk surface (and
sometimes parking locks the head in place). When the head isn't
parked, it can damage the disk surface. "Is this likely?" Well,
probably not likely, but possible which is enough to scare me off. 

Can you say head crash or damaged media?

phil...