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It is conventional wisdom¹ that each time you spin a hard disk down and back up, you shave some time off its life expectancy.
The topic has been discussed before:
- Is turning off hard disks harmful?
- What's the effect of standby (spindown) mode on modern hard drives?
Common explanations for why spindowns and spinups are harmful are that they induce more stress on the mechanical parts than ordinary running, and that they cause heat variations that are harmful to the device mechanics.
Is there any data showing quantitatively how bad a spin cycle is? That is, how much life expectancy does a spin cycle cost? Or, more practically, if I know that I'm not going to need a disk for X seconds, how large should X be to warrant spinning down?
¹ But conventional wisdom has been wrong before; for example, it is commonly held that hard disks should be kept as cool as possible, but the one published study on the topic shows that cooler drives actually fail more. This study is no help here since all the disks surveyed were powered on 24/7.
1@SysAdmin1138 are you aware that e.g. WD Red are only build for few spin cycles and long operation times? -> should therefore depend on the type of drive. – Offler – 2017-01-01T20:44:36.237
One of the benefits for working at a university, I get online access to peer-reviewed papers. I'll look. – SysAdmin1138 – 2010-10-11T18:14:09.180
8Part of why this Conventional Wisdom came about is anecdotal experience with drives not spinning up after spinning down, generally a problem seen most often in drives that have been spinning continuously for years. In these cases age is probably a bigger factor than spin-cycle count. – SysAdmin1138 – 2010-10-11T18:22:14.157
Regarding the conventional wisdom of keeping drives cool being wrong, it's not entirely incorrect. While keeping them cold is not recommended, a hard drive's life expectancy will be reduced if it overheats, which is a much more common problem than excessive cold. Unless you are in an extreme environment, the idea that a hard drive should always be kept cooler is a good rule of thumb. – forest – 2019-06-08T07:23:39.320
1The answer is going to be different depending on the drive type (laptop, or desktop), RPM, etc. If you're worried about the lifespan dying on seldomly used drives maybe a SSD is what you need? – Daisetsu – 2010-12-29T23:00:50.317
2Yeah, I doubt that spin cycles are a major factor. As SysAdmin1138 mentions, it's common for an old disk to refuse to spin up after being spun down for a relatively lengthy period (long enough for the bearings to cool), but this is probably due to the congealed lube seizing up -- has nothing to do with the number of "cycles". – Daniel R Hicks – 2012-06-26T01:21:26.977
I too asked about this (in regards to power-management). I learned that disks have two distinct phases of their startup/shutdown cycle, and that only the spin-related attributes are the really critical ones.
– Synetech – 2012-06-28T03:13:56.6503Inrush Current – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2012-06-28T18:03:59.013