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From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,unix-pc.general
Subject: Re: 3b1 40meg disk woes: Help
Message-ID: <17733@cup.portal.com>
Date: 29 Apr 89 04:35:09 GMT
References: <3961@emory.mathcs.emory.edu> <17513@cup.portal.com> <2947@ihuxy.ATT.COM> <586@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>
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And yet again re: Daniel Levy's questions ...

Doesn't make much sense to attempt to park the HD's heads on one's UNIXPC
since the system will be moving the heads again within an hour or so to
check the /usr/spool/uucp directory (unless one has cleaned out all the
stuff in the crontab file).

I run my computers 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week.  The computers last and last and
last.

The two MOST dangerous events in the life of a computer (and a HD) are the
power-up and the power-down events.

Based on my personal examination of the UNIXPC, you should EXPECT 5 years
of continuous operation when the system is powered up continously.

HOWEVER: to prevent fartleberries accumulating in the file system, it IS a
good idea to "shutdown" and "reboot" every week or so ... but keep the power
applied to the system.

A continuously running system, at thermal equilibrium, is a happy system! :-)


Thad Floryan [thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad]