Warning about that old "shut down your hard drive every night" advice

Tbh my coworker at Gold's Gym in Austin swore by powering down his external hard drive every single night to "save its life." I followed that for like 4 years with my 2008 Seagate 1TB, and it died after only 3 years of use. I read later that constant spin up and spin down actually wears out the bearings faster than just leaving it on. Has anyone else killed a drive by following that old tip?

2 comments

2 Comments

rosejackson19d ago

Yep. That "tip" killed my 2008 Seagate too. Bearings just can't handle all that starting and stopping.

faith_schmidt19d ago

Holy crap, that's a bummer. I had no idea the starting and stopping could do that to the bearings. I always thought it was just the drive heads that took the beating from spinning down all the time. Your Seagate was a 2008 model too? That's brutal, man.