On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Chuck Guzis<cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 20 Jul 2009 at 6:59, Jules Richardson wrote:
Yes, and I've often found that ST506/412
drives seem to suffer
age-related faults - i.e. they can go bad just from sitting there...
I wonder if being occasionally used extends their lifetime?
Given that the two common HDA faults (not counting head crashes) that
I've personally seen from drives of that era are stiction (ST225 and
ST241 especially) and the rubber head-knock-stop turning to goo (DEC
RD53/Micropolis 1335), my answer would be probably yes and probably
no. It depends, I think, on what faults the model in front of you is
known for if running periodically would help or not. I think the
rubber-to-goo thing is entirely based on the design of the drive and
the composition of the rubber itself and not power-on-hours; OTOH,
periodic operation might help stiction, depending design/construction
factors such as too much/too sticky medium lubricant.
Overall, I'd say run some vs not at all is probably better, but I have
a stack of 5.25" drives that haven't been run in years. I'm planning
on checking my idle drives for stiction as I find places to install
them.
-ethan