Hard drive life philosophy

[Fulmar]

I'm looking to put together another file server and I'm looking for some input from others.  I'm going to being use ClarkConnect which is based off of RedHat.  By default, the hard drives have journaling enabled (ext3) and thus are never spins down.  For those of you not familiar with ClarkConnect, it basically can serve as an all in one firewall/router/file server/web/mail server and a number of other things all on one box.  I plan on using it only for the firewall/router/file server setup.  On the main hard drive where Clark Connect is installed, you cannot turn off the journal.  But on the 3 other hard drives I am debating disabling it and running ext2 as they will server as the file server drives.

My main question is...do you believe hard drives last longer when they are constantly spinning and never power down or the opposite.

I've found opinions on both sides of the ball but wondering if anyone has personal experience with this.  Granted this server is a budget build using all spare parts.  The hard drives are older, but pass all the SMART tests and operational tests.  They are also consumer grade.  I'm not worried about potential data loss as I have other back up options I pursue.

[AirFlyer]

I'm not really positive myself but from what I heard is that they HDD gets a lot of its wear and tear when it starts and stops. So my assumption would be that it would actually be better to just keep them spinning at all times. Will it make a significant difference or not though I haven't the slightest clue.

[1701E]

Currently have an old HP with a dieing HDD and it seems to be doing fine if it stays on.  It struggles for its life to start up, and 9 out of 10 times it fails.  Not sure if it is living longer by allowing it to stay on, or if turning it off would help, but being on seems to be more stable than attemptin to start it up every day.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Consumer grade parts are not rated for 24 hour operation. Since it's not a real server anyway it's probably going to see little activity. So I would set the harddrives to spin off after a short time if I was worried about reliability.

[RTHolmes]

no reason why HDs cant spin down when using a journalling FS, and journalling is a good thing

[Skuzzy]

Ripley is quite right.  Typical SATA hard drives are not rated for 24 hour operation and should be shut down when not in use.

Power up used to be an issue with the electronics, more than the motor.  The electronics have come a long way and are pretty much immune to power-up-failure.

Then there are the drives like the Seagate Cheetahs.  They should never be turned off.  The "NS" line of SATA drives from Seagate are also rated for 24/7 use.

[llama]

In my experience, different parts fail in different ways depending on whether they are on 24/7 or for a normal duty cycle.

But in the end, everything fails eventually.

Therefore, use the computer the way you want to use it, and expect to replace broken components no matter what you do.

-Llama

[Bino]

Fulmar, over and above the hardware questions, EXT3 has had lots of work on bug fixes and enhancements since the days of EXT2.  And the journal prevents your having to run a (potentially) long-running fsck after a system crash.  EXT3 will also flip a file system into read-only mode if it detects any file weirdness, to prevent further corruption.

EXT3 file system user forum here:  http://www.nabble.com/Ext3---User-f995.html

[Fulmar]

Thanks for the info everyone.

[Sincraft]

90% of the hd's I see fail due to mechanics.  The more it moves the more chance you have to kill it.  But it seems like some devices can go on forever until you cycle the power on them then they just can't take it.