From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1SSXtC-0001Sp-F9 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 10 May 2012 18:15:07 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D50F3E0C0F; Thu, 10 May 2012 18:14:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-yw0-f53.google.com (mail-yw0-f53.google.com [209.85.213.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 173C0E077A for ; Thu, 10 May 2012 18:13:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: by yhjj72 with SMTP id j72so2228524yhj.40 for ; Thu, 10 May 2012 11:13:19 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=anqdIJYQaOgSoPfYsVz1H9k3l9UW4gv+XdMIruAQ69s=; b=Vbn+POeNjLYxcZtzU5Fr3Wkz1jdM6Ct1A68qsM24J2B6k6rdt8ogQMD/aWUFGMydSH 7DOJdz2GA7bDxeg62Ym0f8TeRCcvcIXLhDn0T2c8IHglQM7NX1S9Yn++opBR2N30DZw/ RusUy6tK7rZaGNtWs2sFls9ifvYIRmT6qi4A3nhhzC5N4b1xsakZNSmWBxbD0zyOP4v1 lwgYUzzuVoyTKQ/cHiY44/7hM2ySbMupRI5MNrgtwMEfjbwuZAM2o3hyflHyGQfzwFOl b8biyJB1KUS6923qFueGOtYNaVlUlI67Qjokpym5pLOjwfcaChXhIUbFnRFV49xcI549 sp/A== Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.60.14.4 with SMTP id l4mr3972217oec.39.1336673599566; Thu, 10 May 2012 11:13:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.182.182.74 with HTTP; Thu, 10 May 2012 11:13:19 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: <4FAA2F0D.8080900@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 14:13:19 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Are those "green" drives any good? From: Norman Invasion To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Archives-Salt: a4d76a2d-68af-44be-9faf-14e01ca36569 X-Archives-Hash: 911c381e40544b7d9194021b60397395 On 10 May 2012 14:01, Mark Knecht wrote: > On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 9:20 AM, Norman Invasion > wrote: >> On 9 May 2012 04:47, Dale wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> As some know, I'm planning to buy me a LARGE hard drive to put all my >>> videos on, eventually. =A0The prices are coming down now. =A0I keep see= ing >>> these "green" drives that are made by just about every company nowadays= . >>> =A0When comparing them to a non "green" drive, do they hold up as good? >>> Are they as dependable as a plain drive? =A0I guess they are more >>> efficient and I get that but do they break quicker, more often or no >>> difference? >>> >>> I have noticed that they tend to spin slower and are cheaper. =A0That m= uch >>> I have figured out. =A0Other than that, I can't see any other differenc= e. >>> =A0Data speeds seem to be about the same. >>> >> >> They have an ugly tendency to nod off at 6 second intervals. >> This runs up "193 Load_Cycle_Count" unacceptably: as many >> as a few hundred thousand in a year & a million cycles is >> getting close to the lifetime limit on most hard drives. =A0I end >> up running some iteration of >> # hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda >> every boot. >> > > Very true about the 193 count. Here's a drive in a system that was > built in Jan., 2010 so it's a bit over 2 years old at this point. It's > on 24/7 and not rebooted except for more major updates, etc. My tests > say the drive spins down and starts back up every 2 minutes and has > been doing so for about 28 months. IIRC the 193 spec on this drive was > something like 300000 max with the drive currently clocking in at > 700488. I don't see any evidence that it's going to fail but I am > trying to make sure it's backed up often. Being that it's gone >2x at > this point I will swap the drive out in the early summer no matter > what. This week I'll be visiting where the machine is so I'm going to > put a backup drive in the box to get ready. > Yes, I just learned about this problem in 2009 or so, & checked on my FreeBSD laptop, which turned out to be at >400000. It only made it another month or so before having unrecoverable errors. Now, I can't conclusively demonstrate that the 193 Load_Cycle_Count was somehow causitive, but I gots my suspicions. Many of 'em highly suspectable.