[mythtv-users] raid array spin down possible?

David Watkins watkinshome at gmail.com
Tue Sep 27 12:44:58 UTC 2011


> Also, there's some evidence to suggest that higher temps aren't as
> important in drive failure rates as often thought.[2]

> [1] http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/labs.google.com/en//papers/disk_failures.pdf
> [2] http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/labs.google.com/en//papers/disk_failures.pdf


I decided that that Google research paper didn't really apply to my situation.

a) My drives generally report SMART temperatures at or above the 37
degrees where that negative failure trend reverses for new drives.

b) By the time Google's drives become more that two years old (and
100% of my disk failures have occurred after this)  then the evidence
for higher temperatures causing a higher failure rate looks clear.

c) I don't buy enough drives for the difference between a failure
probability density of 0.04 and 0.02 to make a significant difference
(like if I buy two lottery tickets instead of one then I'm twice as
likely to win - but still not likely at all)


So after all that I'd agree that if the drives are within their
temperature rating then I wouldn't worry about them feeling hot, from
a reliability point of view; but if I lived in Phoenix then in the
summer I wouldn't want anything hot inside my house.  Nice there in
winter though.


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