should I get a external HD to avoid internal HD damage?

If you set the swap file size to zero on your internal hard drive and have enough RAM to handle the transfer, then you are probably goign to come out ahead. But otherwise, it seems to me that you will be doing just as much damage to the hard drive using an external as the data will have to be processed between the internet connection and the external drive, and will probably be written to the swap file.

Just my understanding of how it works, I could be wrong.

I don't think your desktop HDD died because too much bittorrent usage. It doesn't matter what you are doing, disk usage IS disk usage. If it died, it was because it was a faulty one or not a good brand.

I leave my lappy on for 15 hours a day Mon-Fri, and 24 hours a day on weekends, all the time downloading/uploading. I had a 80GB 5400rpm Seagate and I used it for 4 months and it is still OK, and I've used my new Hitachi 100GB 7200rpm for about 5 months and it is still OK.

So, don't worry too much.

I leave my machine on 24x7... two hd's. Been on over 3 years, literally. No issues. I don't even have a standby or hibernate mode on this POS dell box.

Heat kills things guys..

Laptop is not a server.

True, but that was quite a suprise. I was anticipating an Acronis suggestion, since this is a perfect time to recommend a good backup.

smoothoperator, if you look around a bit you should find some links that WeAreNotAlone has posted to the Radified site where they talk about using Ghost amongst other things. There are also some recommendations on setting up a notebook's disk, etc.. You may find it better to spend less money on a good backup strategy for now, and purchase the disk when you need it. BTW, 2 disks really just doubles the number of things that can break.

Also, there has been Mucho debate over the years about how best prolong the life of a hard drive, with many false assumptions. The best answers, that I've heard over the years, is that these are the killers (in decreasing order of their effect):

1. Poor Manufacturing
   
2. Bad Power
   
3. Heat
   
4. Vibration
   
5. Power Cycling
   

Contrary to what you might think, USING a drive does not really hurt it (unless #1 is true), but instead NOT USING a drive can theoretically cause data to get lost.

That's true, but desktops use more energy and that may kill us all!

And my dad gets really mad when we leave the desktop on, so I leave my lappy on because that way he wouldn't notice it that much.

Ericko...
What was the deal with the Seagate 80GB 5400rpm USB 2.0 External HDD drive that wasn't working a month or so ago?

Oh! You still remember that!

Original Line: It turned out to be a problem with how much energy the USB port was able to handle.

Added Line: Maybe a problem with the external enclosure, there's a big chance it got damaged while trying to use it with a client's PC

At the very begining I was using my external HDD with just one USB cable (data/power). Then, one day, I tried to use the external HDD on someone else's computer and I had some issues, with the HDD clicking and the enclosure's LED blinking. That day I had a CD with me with the files I was gonna need, so I used the CD instead of the external HDD.

But then...back at my house, I tried to use my external HDD and it just refused to work, I had the same clicking noises and blinking LED, so I freaked out! I reinstalled that Seagate HDD into my lappy and ran some tests, all of them went OK. But it still refused to work on the external enclosure. Then I used the 2 USB cables (data/power + power) and then the HDD worked just fine!

I think that someone else's computer some way damaged my external enclosure, so now it needs the two USB cables. At the begining I even used the external HDD on an old IBM laptop (1999 I think), it only had one USB 1.1 Port and it worked OK, slow of course, but it worked, I can't try it again 'cause that IBM laptop finally died!

Yesterday it refused to work on my desktop (I don't know why and I didn't try again), but it works like a champ on my lappy's USB ports.

Anything else you wanna know? Just ask and I'll try to answer!

Ericko,

I'd get rid of that enclosure....

Well, actually I would love to do that, but since I don't live in the US it is really a pain in the a$$ to buy anything online, and on retail stores they're really expensive.

I think I will stick with that enclosure, wait a little more, if I keep having issues, I will get rid of it.

And...Thanks for your advice! (IIRC you like people to say "Thanks" to you )

Ericko, the concern I would have on the enclosure is it burning up your usb port for example (pulling too much current)

Do you know how much current are USB ports able to handle? I could use my multimeter to measure the current and then compare it with the normal value.

Don't baby it...you paid for it...USE it. You most likely have a warranty so what are you so worried about? I think "babying" it to the point of using an external drive is just not worth it for that reasoning. If you just want your stuff on a seperate drive that's another story. If you this worried about the quality of something you just purchased you should have put some effort into a little bit of research...but your probably ok, laptops where invented yesterday

I don't know what "baby it" or "babying it" means.

But what I know is that I'm not worried, just a little confused, but not worried. I still have 2+ years warranty for my lappy.

I'm just saying, laptop hard drives are not as delicate as flowers. They are meant to be used...not abused of course but I wouldn't go so far as to use a secondary drive just because I didn't want the internal drive to be "over worked" or whatever.

Laptop isn't a SERVER...

Hard drive with no air flow around it is not going to last as long as a drive that does.

Thanks...I didn't see that the first 10 times you posted it...:P just poke'n fun.

It was posted once above in this thread, not ten times (post #5)... Heat does kill things.... item inside an enclosed space with very little air flow isn't going to last as long as one that does.

I understand that, I've been doing computer work for "a little while" now I was just trying to raz you a bit for repeating yourself.