Will this shorten my HDD lifespan?

Tackle_Berry · 27 Nov 2011 at 17:00

Hi I have been recording most my BF3 games with fraps onto a 2TB HDD. I would say every day i record around 150GB of videos onto it, Trim and keep the best bits and delete whats left. Will this drastically shorten the lifespan of the drive?

Hyburnate · 27 Nov 2011 at 17:32

I believe it will.

Sasahara · 27 Nov 2011 at 18:29

It shouldn't have a big effect, large sequential read/writes won't wear the actuator. The spindle drive motor is on all the time anyway, unless you have it set to sleep/shut down, which is more likely to cause wear.

Just keep an eye on the temps, under 50c is good, if you have a decent cooling you'll be fine.

panyan · 27 Nov 2011 at 18:36

it would shorten its life, but i wouldnt imagine any more so than normal usage

strumpusplunket · 27 Nov 2011 at 23:00

I'd say yes... in the sense that *any* use of your HDD will shorten its life compared to leaving it idle/unplugged/in its box...

However, it's really not like it's something that likely to kill your drive super-fast. You'd still be reasonable to expect a good few years of life from the drive.

If I were to assume to temerity to give advice, I'd say just make sure you backup what you can't afford to lose (which everyone should do anyway) and not worry unduly about the overall impact on your drive of your regular writes.

iBSOD · 28 Nov 2011 at 08:06

It'll probably last longer than you'll use it for anyway.