the heads rest on an air bearing when running. when not, they are resting on
the drive. there may be a small amount of lubricant present. that ages,
bearings fail, etc. stiction isn't the problem it used to be, but it still
happens. magnetic media itself fades after a while and needs periodic
renewal. it's not every year, but every 5 years would not be a bad idea.
more important than any of this though is that hard drives are going up in
capacity faster than Moore's Law and people who author content are relying
on it. that's why i have a 1.1TB drive array for my photos and use 500GB
backup drives. i have about 370GB in use. once you have that much storage,
backup to DVDs is pretty much useless. archiving would work, except i don't
trust DVD media yet.
Herb...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Øsleby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <pentax-discuss@pdml.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 8:51 PM
Subject: Storing digital images (Was: RAW file processing)
I don't get this. A normal HD does age. That I do understand. They do spin
at 7200rpm. But does a disconnected external drive age?
