Subject: Re: Western Digital 250G hard drive
To: Ian McIntosh <ianm@cat.co.za>
From: Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
List: tech-kern
Date: 12/04/2003 21:58:11
On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 08:41:28AM +0200, Ian McIntosh wrote:
> Thanks again for all the feedback.
> 
> I am quite sure that the airflow issue is a non-issue. When the drive is
> connected on
> both systems it is out in the open and I don't intend wrapping a parka
> around to see what that does :-)......though to see how hot it gets
> before failure would be quite fun but expensive.
> 
> As an extra thought, I was wondering if the windows system puts the
> drive into a sleep mode when not in use whereas the BSD system
> doesn't? That would explain the difference and also make sense as the
> drive is left as a slave and nothing written to it.
> 
> Is this a possibility?

I don't think so. Drives (exept laptop drives) are not designed for frequent
spin up/spin down.
Some BIOSes have an option to set the standby timer, but by experience this
makes the drives die sonner.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
     NetBSD: 24 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--