Hard Drive... always on?

[EAO]

I had read in a thread sometime ago that the HD during capture (Or was it encoding?) should be set to always on.

Can someone clarify, because now that I'm capturing and encoding with my HD always on, I'm getting concerned that I'm going to burn that little spindle out real quick.

Am I hurting my HD's using this setting?

[bugster]

Am I hurting my HD's using this setting?

No problem.

[HillJack]

Setting your hard drive to "Always On" makes no sense, regardless of what you're doing. A drive spinning 24/7 doing nothing is only going to die faster than one that shuts itself off when its not doing anything.

When you're capturing, the drive is in use, and even if you've set it to turn off after 5 minutes, it'll never happen until no more programs access it for a 5 minute period. Turn off after 5 minutes means turn off after 5 minutes of non-use, which certainly is not the case when capturing.

Best bet is set the drive to turn itself off after 1 or 2 hours, and make sure you access the drive within that time frame prior to capturing (so as the drive doesn't spin itself down just as you start capturing). If it's not doing anything, let it turn itself off.

[Gazorgan]

Most people get confused in their power settings. They power down after the screen saver goes off. This is different than a Harddrive powering off after being idle. Look at the settings, it's quite intuitive.

It's the system setting you want at never, not the monitor or harddrive.

[bottle-necked]

I've used computers since 1989. I've built computers since 1995. I'm doing something on computer everyday. My computer works hard.

I always set my power options to 'Always On' and 'Never'. I don't even use a screen saver or do I rely on power options to manage my systems. Never did, don't now, and never will.

Just turn your system off when you're done using it and forget it.

If you wear out that little spindle just throw that drive away and buy you a new & better one.