partitions and hard drive life?

[cypher_soundz]

I used to own a 40gb fujitsu , nice little drive then one day Poof!!! Nothing no indication that it was going to fail it just died!! But what I was wondering was would having many partitions cause a hard drives life to reduce? (More time to access data/ has to spin more to access the same data?) Or am I being stupid don't worry that happens! :D my old set up was two partitions one was for OS and files and the other was for thing ready to backup etc so even if the OS failed I could reinstall with no worry about loosing stored data! Then I installed Linux and repartitioned for the 3 partitions needed for Linux. So in total that’s 6 (including the boot partition) could this lower the life of my hard drive? i guess it decreases performance?

[Arky]

I'm no expert on this, but my layman's understanding of partitions is that that, if anything, they INCREASE the performance of a drive, because smaller partitions encourage more efficient cluster usage by the drive. Other more technically-minded members may know otherwise! What I CAN say, with absolute certainty is that I have never ever heard of a HDD losing performance or lifespan as a consequence of partitioning. When it's your time to kick the bucket, you kick the bucket, regardless of how segregated and organised your life is! ;)


Arky ;o)

[cypher_soundz]

lol good explanation! so the "partitions" get less fragmented , because theres less places to point to the data? does that make sence ?

[MvB]

But what I was wondering was would having many partitions cause a hard drives life to reduce?

Hmmmmmm. that's something i never heard of...
But i know something else that kills the lifetime of your HD: Powermanagement. If your HD is forced to stop spinning and start spinning very often it lasts very short. The best way to have a HD living a long time is to:

- take care that the drive doesn't get to hot
- take care that the drive is permanently spinning or permanently turned off
- take care that it doesn't vibrate too much.
- take care that you don't buy an IBM HD.

[sarahjh69]

out of the 15 hard drives I have (in the last 5 years)
4 out of 10 Maxtors have failed
none out of 2 IBMs have failed
the outher 3 HDs form various sources are OK

its fate...nothing you can do to stop em failing
apart from not spinning em!

[Arky]

Hmmm. Yes, currently 2 of my HDDS are IBMs. I have heard both good and bad about IBM HDDs. They used to have a bulletproof reputation. I was told by a shop owner in Nottingham the other day that Western Digital are the current leaders in HDD technology and reliablity. Since my primary HDD is a W-D, I will no doubt (eventually) find out which manufacturer makes the best drives! I do hope this isn't for a very long time yet, though. Even with DVD-R, I have way too much data to make full backing up of my harddrives a practical reality :(


Arky ;o)

[cypher_soundz]

lol i see good luck, well i thought my fujitsu was good , it was REALY fast to , but then nothing. Nottngiham? lets just say nottingham city centre isnt to far away from my house ;) i hear seagate is a godo make ( my curent drive) fingers crossed.

[auenf]

Originally posted by MvB
- take care that you don't buy an IBM HD.

like i say to ALL people who try to put IBM down:

i have 1x 20gb 75GXP and 2x 30GB 75GXP at home
at work we have 3x 15gb 75GXP, 3x 30GXP (one in the mac G4) and 1x 60GB 75GXP

thats about 10 drives, running off various motherboard chipsets: i815e(p), bx, ali magik 1 and a KX133 (which doesnt run any ibm anymore)

and only 1 drive has failed, whether it was the fact that it was running on the VIA KX133, or whether cause it was made in hungary (the ibm hdd plant there aparently has been shutdown), but it was replaced straight away, and it was actually my home computer too.

will i still recommend IBM hdds to friends?

yes, unless they have a via chipset, then i will try to get them to not get a via mobo too ;)

and on the note of hdd reliability, ive had a lot of non-ibm hdds die, mostly before 1yr old, but all the 75GXP's ive mentioned are still running to date *touch wood* (all over 1yr old now) and behave fine.

as for your other points:

heat is bad, altho i have a 75GXP that runs at 40+ deg C happily. (the 75GXP and newer IBM's run a lot colder than older IBM's)

powering on or off a hdd does reduce its life a little, but 7200rpm drives are not designed for 24/7 usage, but may operate under these conditions.

ohh and if anyone points me to OCAU article where they pulled a 'dead' 20gb 75GXP apart and you can see a damaged platter:

1. yes it was a hungary
2. no, its not mine
3. the scratch was on there since the drive was built, look closer at the heads:

75GXP uses 15GB platters (7gb/side). the 20gb would use (approx) 1.5 platters, which is only 3 heads.

ok, enough ranting for me...

Enf...

[theReal]

I've had one WD and one Maxtor drive failing so far. Right now I'm running 2 WD 60Gig (5400 rpm) and two IBM Deskstar 120Gig (7200 rpm) without any problems. However I learned from the past and my drives are now vibration-free (as good as I can do that) and they have very good cooling.
I think the problems with IBM were only with one special series of Deskstars (the 60-75Gig, I believe) - before that IBM had always had the reputation of making much more reliable drives than their competitors.