3 ms·
"Active idle" on a drive is still rated at around 5W. Maybe they don't spin down completely in the idle state? BackBlaze says it's better for the longevity of a
by lunixbochs 12y ago
"Active idle" on a drive is still rated at around 5W. Maybe they don't spin down completely in the idle state? BackBlaze says it's better for the longevity of a drive to leave it running than to power it on and off regularly.
- e12e 12y ago> it's better for the longevity of a drive to leave it running than to power it on and off regularly. Sure, for the general use-case. But if this was "just" for backup, powering up would probably be quite rare. If it was for content distribution (eg: torrent) with some expected semi-frequent access, leaving the drive on would probably be best. With an USB-disk (or a disk in a USB enclosure) it should be possible to power it down completely. The main problem then would be powering it up again -- I'm not sure if there's an API/interface for powering up an USB device that has been powered down, other than plugging it out and in again?