After my recent (temporary) hard drive failure, I was reading some
data recovery websites. One site mentioned extending a drives life by
defragging often, running scandisk and other utilities to check the
drive, etc. They also said that hard drives should always be *******
to the case to dissipate heat, saying that the case absorbs the heat.
This makes some sense, but I have NEVER mounted a hard drive. They
always sit loose in my case because I am always swapping drives. I
never put the cover on the computer either. Is this mounting really
important? Would an external fan pointed at the drives help keep them
cool?
One other thing. I do defrag and run other utilities fairly
regularly, but dont programs like scandisk, (where it does a FULL
SCAN) just wear the drive out faster? It seems that running any
program that makes the heads keep moving for extended time would wear
out the drive faster than just normal use?????
Maybe I am wrong, but it just seems to make sense????
John Doe wrote:
> george41407@noemail.com wrote:
>
> > Would an external fan pointed at the drives help keep them cool?
>
> Yes. Some tower cases come with a hard drive rack in front of the
> bottom intake fan. Makes perfect sense don't it?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > George
> >
MARK BENDER AKA JOHN DOE = WIFE BEATER LIVING AT 509 FROST TX 78201
Texas Arrest Report:
Name: MARK BEDNER
SSN: 507-82-xxxx
Address: 5200 BLANCO RD 407, SAN ANTONIO TX 78216-7074
State of Origin: Texas
County of Origin: Bexar
Party Status: REL'D ON P-R BOND
DOB: 01/22/1957
Race: White
Sex: Male
Eyes: BLUE
Height: 5' 06"
Weight: 160
>After my recent (temporary) hard drive failure, I was reading some
>data recovery websites. One site mentioned extending a drives life by
>defragging often, running scandisk and other utilities to check the
>drive, etc. They also said that hard drives should always be *******
>to the case to dissipate heat, saying that the case absorbs the heat.
>This makes some sense, but I have NEVER mounted a hard drive. They
>always sit loose in my case because I am always swapping drives. I
>never put the cover on the computer either. Is this mounting really
>important? Would an external fan pointed at the drives help keep them
>cool?
Always bolt in the drive to its bay and allow for air space on top and
bottom for cooling. A fan blowing over the entire drive will help
cool it, but the case won't conduct any significant amount of heat,
not even if it's aluminum, because the contact area is too small to
matter.
I doubt defragmentation will help drive life, and it's better to test
a drive with its manufacturer's free diagnostics instead of Scandisk
or Chkdsk.
In message <1185486683.328427.273270@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups .com>
"rantonrave@mail.com" <rantonrave@mail.com> wrote:
>I doubt defragmentation will help drive life, and it's better to test
>a drive with its manufacturer's free diagnostics instead of Scandisk
>or Chkdsk.
That depends on what you're testing, of course... For the drive, the
manufacturer is the way to go, obviously.
For the data, you won't beat chkdsk (on NT based OSes)
--
If quitters never win, and winners never quit,
what fool came up with, "Quit while you're ahead"?
george41407@noemail.com wrote:
> After my recent (temporary) hard drive failure, I was reading some
> data recovery websites. One site mentioned extending a drives life by
> defragging often, running scandisk and other utilities to check the
> drive, etc. They also said that hard drives should always be *******
> to the case to dissipate heat, saying that the case absorbs the heat.
> This makes some sense, but I have NEVER mounted a hard drive. They
> always sit loose in my case because I am always swapping drives. I
> never put the cover on the computer either. Is this mounting really
> important? Would an external fan pointed at the drives help keep them
> cool?
>
> The article is from:
> http://www.harddiskhome.com/quantum-hard-disk.html
> Click on the link where it says something about the life of a drive.
>
> (By the way, this is a useful and good site).
>
> One other thing. I do defrag and run other utilities fairly
> regularly, but dont programs like scandisk, (where it does a FULL
> SCAN) just wear the drive out faster? It seems that running any
> program that makes the heads keep moving for extended time would wear
> out the drive faster than just normal use?????
> Maybe I am wrong, but it just seems to make sense????
>
> George
My thoughts would tend towards vibration reduction during drive
operation from secure mounting, thus prolonging drive life.
Ari
--
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On Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:20:42 -0500, Frank McCoy <mccoyf@millcomm.com>
wrote:
>If you're really swapping drives all the time, then far better would be
>to get mounts designed for swapping drives. Costs a bit more; but would
>save you considerable headache in the future.
I'd like that, but as you say next, where does one get them?????
>
>Sadly, looking through Google, most drive-swap hardware these days is
>made for SATA drives, not ATA. They *used* to have them all the time;
>but I can't find any now with a quick search.
>
Same here. It would probably be faster to make something than try to
buy them. Besides, I'd need a new case. I dont believe these
standard cases will fit those adaptors (if they can be found).
>Still, even if you *don't* mount the drives properly, at the very
>*least* you should put them in their bays (without using screws) so they
>sit right, cables don't come loose, they get better air-circulation, and
>aren't susceptible to being bumped or stuff like that.
Once again, I need a new case. I only have 2 bays and generally run 3
or 4 drives at once. My CD drive is rarely plugged in because I need
all 4 drives as hard drives. Since my master HD crashed, I am keeping
a 3rd drive installed all the time, so I can backup everything on that
drive every few hours. Until the end of the month I can not afford
another HD so I just keep doing backups of important stuff and my
email. Worse yet, my case is so lousy I have to remove the CPU to use
the upper drive bay. I have only used that bay once. I just stack
the harddrives and place a piece of cardboard between them to
eliminate any possible shorts to their circuit boards.
I suppose thats not the best for cooling, but they have been this way
for months.
>On Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:20:42 -0500, Frank McCoy <mccoyf@millcomm.com>
>wrote:
>
>>If you're really swapping drives all the time, then far better would be
>>to get mounts designed for swapping drives. Costs a bit more; but would
>>save you considerable headache in the future.
>
>I'd like that, but as you say next, where does one get them?????
Is it important to mount a harddrive? 
Linear Mode
