Raid0 running 24/7

joeyjojo · 7 Jul 2006 at 08:12

Currently have 2x Hitachi 7k80 drives in RAID0 on a dfi expert. I was thinking about leaving the system on 24/7 to fold, but I'm not sure if that's wise, particularly concerning the hard drives spinning non-stop. Will 24/7 use have a noticable effect on these drives?

Messiah Khan · 7 Jul 2006 at 09:01

Why would the drives be spinning constantly? But no, drives generally are designed to run for ages, so it will have little noticeable effect on them. If you wanted to, you could look at the MTBF figures, and work out on average how many days a drive can run for non stop before an estimated failure.

joeyjojo · 7 Jul 2006 at 17:37

Thanks mate, thats reassuring anyway

From wikipedia

A typical hard disk drive design consists of a spindle on which the platters spin at a constant RPM

You don't often hear drives changing speed(?)

Can't find MTBF info

iBot · 7 Jul 2006 at 19:49

500000 hours.

Torch [P4] · 7 Jul 2006 at 20:07

ive had 2 maxtor sata drives running in Raid 0 for over 1 year now 24/7 on my storage server with no problems

using 3ware raid card

joeyjojo · 7 Jul 2006 at 23:03

iBot said:
500000 hours.

Hmm 57 years, I like that

Torch [P4] said:
ive had 2 maxtor sata drives running in Raid 0 for over 1 year now 24/7 on my storage server with no problems using 3ware raid card

Good stuff. Who said Maxtors were unreliable

*touches wood for you*

Cheers guys, no worries about folding 24/7 then. Must remember to make frequent backups though.

Indy500 · 7 Jul 2006 at 23:06

I've seen figures as low as 50,000 hours, but even then, thats over 5.5 years.

kimandsally · 7 Jul 2006 at 23:08

joeyjojo said:
Hmm 57 years, I like that

Good stuff. Who said Maxtors were unreliable *touches wood for you*

Cheers guys, no worries about folding 24/7 then. Must remember to make frequent backups though.

A mate of mine has had a P3 400 running for 9 years never turned it off only when he goes on holiday for more than a week, amazing how reliable most things are, he mentioned it to me after talking about burning in CPU's I think his system is burnt in for sure by now.

Beansprout · 7 Jul 2006 at 23:12

Don't forget to half the expected failure time since you're running in RAID0

Generally if you're running RAID0 you don't care about failures anyway, because you should have your data backed up elsewhere if it's important.

Energize · 7 Jul 2006 at 23:27

joeyjojo said:
Thanks mate, thats reassuring anyway

From wikipediaYou don't often hear drives changing speed(?)

Can't find MTBF info

When they are not doing anything after a while they will spin down.

IronFire · 9 Jul 2006 at 12:15

Leaving your PC on 24/7 with hard disk power saving turned off will probably extend the life of your disks compared to shutting down your PC every night or allowing power management features to continually spin the disks up and down when required.

crashuk · 9 Jul 2006 at 16:30

once they release a 10gig usb stick i will be using that for my os

Messiah Khan · 9 Jul 2006 at 21:51

crashuk said:
once they release a 10gig usb stick i will be using that for my os

With their <20mbps transfer rate? Fair enough the random access is great, but the transfer rate it terrible compared to a harddrive. Windows Vista however will allow you to connect a USB stick up to help it speed up certain OS operations, by using the fast random access time.

Energize · 9 Jul 2006 at 22:54

crashuk said:
once they release a 10gig usb stick i will be using that for my os

Your better off using iram, much faster than usb sticks. Read and write speeds are awfull for them and so are transfer rates, the usb interface is limited to 480Mb/s, hard drives transfer data at about 550Mb/s.

Messiah Khan · 9 Jul 2006 at 23:14

Energize said:
Your better off using iram, much faster than usb sticks. Read and write speeds are awfull for them and so are transfer rates, the usb interface is limited to 480Mb/s, hard drives transfer data at about 550Mb/s.

Your not even going to get 480Mb/s out of usb stick though.

Indy500 · 9 Jul 2006 at 23:18

messiah khan said:
Your not even going to get 480Mb/s out of usb stick though.

IIRC, my 512mb usb stick is half the speed of the hard disk.

TheVoice · 9 Jul 2006 at 23:23

Energize said:
When they are not doing anything after a while they will spin down.

Not if Windows is installed on the drives. It seems to constantly access the drive it's installed on. Never seen an XP machine be able to spin down its system drive.

Dutch Guy · 10 Jul 2006 at 08:51

If you run Folding the harddrives will not spin down and power saving does not work.
I have a RAID0 setup and run Seti@home 24/7 and it has been fine for a few months, I do have important data backed up on a separate harddrive and DVD though just in case of a failure.

I have been running my system 24/7 for about 4 years now with several harddrives (mostly Maxtors

) without one ever failing and that is without active cooling.

blighter · 11 Jul 2006 at 23:52

every time you turn your computer on it heats up the drive, expanding the metal plate(s) inside, when it is turned off, the plate cools back down and decreases in size. the expanding and decreasing in size gradually wears down the metal plate, this is why it is better to leave your computer on 24/7... on the other hand there are the power costs... which is why i use i laptop