At 09:28 PM 2/27/00 -0500, Rick Blake wrote:
>2. I do NOT trust drives over 3 years old in a 24x7 application. Period.
>Time for them to go.
While they were still in business, Northgate Computers did an interesting
study of low-end Seagate 251 drives. They took 30 drives and ran them for
long periods of time. Each drive was mounted at an exact angle from vertical.
Short form: the drives that were within 1 degree of true ran for the full
run of the test, eight months if memory serves. Drives that were 2 degrees
out of true failed after six months. Drives that were 4 degrees out of
true failed after 3 months.
This led them to introduce a server box that included a ball level, similar
to the ball levels used on camera tripods and RVs.
If you take one of today's disk drives and took pains to mount it with
proper attention to leveling, the drive will last in excess of five
years. I have a drive here that is on its eighth year of operation, in a
Macintosh IIci. Maxtor.
Now, the fallacy of your argument is that the drive is *spinning* 24x7. In
a router application where you have enough RAM to do the job, the only time
that drive spins is when the system is booting. How often do you do
that? What is that big, expensive piece of IRON over there that has "UPS"
on its side for? It sure isn't brown and contains a steering wheel.
If that drive spins five hours during a year, I'll eat my (chocolate) hat...
Satch
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