[mythtv-users] Using X10 to power on external hard drives

[Brad DerManouelian]

On Sep 11, 2008, at 12:47 PM, Steve Peters - Priority Electronics wrote:

> Sq_start would be nice, but, does running sq_start (or hdparm for that
> matter) actually increase the lifespan of the drives since they're  
> still
> powered on? I have too many drives to go out and buy backup drives  
> for all
> of them (or to burn dvd backups) so I really want to do whatever is  
> best in
> order to stretch the lifespan of the drives out as much as possible.

It depends on your usage. If you spin down and spin back up every 10  
minutes, you will kill your drives faster. If you spin down and spin  
back up in a few hours, you'll get more life out of the drive. My  
drives run about 10°C cooler now that I spin down after 31 minutes of  
inactivity instead of constant spinning all the time. (3 media drives  
all sit snugly together in my Zalman HD-160 case and my OS/MySQL drive  
sits separately, always spinning.) The same can be said for anything  
that's made to burn out over time - lightbulbs, cars, etc. Leave them  
on or constantly shut them down when not in use? Back to my original  
comment.. depends on how much you are using them.