Quote:
| "An opinion is what you have when you don't have any facts. When you have the facts, you don't need an opinion." -David Gerrold |
I want to start by eliminating the two most common, and least useful, arguments: Flukes and negligible effects.
Flukes.
No matter how reliable any device may be, there will always be the risk of failure due to a defect. There are two basic ways to look at this:
1. "I (leave my computer on all the time / turn my computer off whenever I'm not using it) to avoid hastening the extremely slim chance of hardware failure."
2. "The odds of my hardware failing are so incredibly slim that I don't base my usage or configuration on them. I back up my data to safeguard it against ANY possible cause of loss."
Negligible effects.
Computer components are designed to operate in every reasonable environment and configuration that they may be placed. In fact, most operating environment ranges can be quite extreme. The manufacturer takes everything into account when defining operating environment specifications and warranty periods. Heat, vibration, shock, humidity, continuous use, power cycling, etc.
Moving a laptop around, a device designed to be moved around and built with components designed to be moved around, is not going to increase the risk of hard drive failure. Handling the computer abusively or negligently is user error, yet as you will see, is still not a serious problem in regards to the hard drive.
The hard drive
When it comes to the subject of durability, the hard drive is hands-down the most commonly discussed component. I will use the specifications of the commonly available Seagate "Momentus" 100GB drive in my examples, but most laptop drives should have very similar specifications.
There are four factors commonly discussed when it comes to the reliability of hard drives.
1. Continuous use
The misconception: "I turn my computer off when I'm not using it so the hard drive won't just sit and wear itself out for no reason."
The reality: The example drive has a Mean Time Between Failure (power-on hours) rating of 330,000 hours. That's over 37 years! It's unlikely that you'll wear it out, even with continuous activity, in the time you own the system.
2. Power-cycling
The misconception: "I leave my computer on continuously so the hard drive won't wear out from excessive power cycling."
The reality: The example drive has a head load/unload cycle rating of 600,000 cycles. That's the equivalent of turning the computer on and off 328 times a day for the entire 5-year warranty period of the drive.
3. Heat
The misconception: "I don't want to add a second hard drive because of the extra heat it will generate."
The reality: The example drive runs in my XPS at 40C according to it's internal temperature sensor. It has a maximum operating temperature rating of 55C. Adding a second drive to my computer had no measurable impact on the temperature of the CPU or GPU. In other words, it did not stress the cooling capacity of the XPS, and it's reasonable to assume that the result would be similar in a different notebook.
4. Shock
The misconception: "The fact that you move your laptop around every day increases your chances of a hard drive failure."
The reality: A laptop is rarely transported while the drive is powered on, so lets stick with the more realistic example of transporting a system with the drive powered down and the heads parked. When powered off, the example drive is specified to withstand up to 5 Gs of vibration and 800 Gs of shock. Generally speaking, a drive with a shock rating that high would easily withstand a drop of 6' without any damage. Add to the equation the fact that the laptop case would absorb a lot of the impact, significalnty decreasing the shock to the drive, and you really have nothing to worry about.
Summary
When it comes to your hard drive, use your computer any way you want.
Leave it on all the time or turn it off every night. Use RAID0 or keep your data on the drives separately. Pack it like fine china whenever you transport it, or drop it in the tank bag of your motorcycle for your daily 45 minute round-trip commute. (I did it for years without a problem, including several poorly-landed wheelies.)
Your hard drive will survive anything short of determined abuse for a lot longer than you will own it. If it has a defect and is going to fail, your data is backed up and the odds of the replacement drive also being defective are so slim as to be null. The idea of hard drives being fragile, especially notebook hard drives, is an extremely outmoded concept.
-Doc
