Power down disk drive or not - when used two or three times per day

[Chris Green]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2022 at 11:11:52AM +0100, Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Feb 2022 09:34:35 +0000, Chris Green wrote:
> >Is it *really* a good idea to spin down and up twice (or occasionally)
> >three times a day (plus of course any use I make of the backups) or
> >should I configure a 'keep alive' process that stops it spinning down?
> >
> >Power consumption is trivial, so power saving isn't an issue, I'm
> >more concerned about longevity.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> in my experiences 3 times parking and spinning up a day and your HDDs
> will likely die after around 2 years, if you let them run 24/7 they
> likely last for around 7 years. IOW to run the drives 24/7 is
> even better for the ecological footprint.
> 
Well that's pretty much in the 'keep it spinning' cam then, it's the
way I was leaning somewhat anyway. :-)

> 
> Btw. electricity is that expensive, because electricity providers
> gambled, it has nothing to do with green taxes, but it affects the
> ecological footprint, if more hardware gets broken, because it needs to
> get turned on and off and on and off and ... .
> 
One reason, of course, is that when there's no wind and no sun (quite a
common occurrence in the winter) 'quick turn on' gas powered
generation has to be used - and the gas is *very* expensive at the
moment.

-- 
Chris Green