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Does Partitioning a HDD shorten it's life?

  • 19-12-2011 1:52am
    #1
    Hal Emmerich
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,078 ✭✭✭


    Say you put Windows on a (for example) 60GB partition on a 1 Terabyte HDD and use the rest for porn storage, will the constant read/write on that one section cause a failure sooner than if the OS had been given the whole drive??


Comments

  • #2
    Khannie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,485 ✭✭✭✭Khannie


    Total amount of seeking should be more or less the same (possibly less). In fact, using the first 60G for your 1TB drive for the OS will improve overall performance noticeably - Article.


  • #3
    marco_polo
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 10,088 Mod ✭✭✭✭marco_polo


    It shouldn't because the drive heads should never come in contact with the storage platters, so there is no additional mechanical wear and tear from reading and writing to particular areas of the drive more frequently than others.

    To the best of my knowledge the magnetic coating on the platters which actually stores the data does not degrade at all due to frequent usage. Unless it gets damaged somehow (like during a head crash) any deterioration to the magnetic coating itself would be caused by gradual chemical degradation and be measured in decades rather than years, a life expectancy far exceeding all the other parts in the drive combined (And even this I think applies mainly to other magnetic media such as tapes and DVD-R than HDD, the magnetic coating on platters may last much longer again for all I know.).

    The vast majority of wear and tear will be on the main moving parts, the drive bearings because the platters are always spinning when the drive in use, and the head positioning mechanism which are always on move when seeking data on the platter. Alligning the most used data like the OS to a partition at the start of the drive will actually reduce the distance that the heads have to move, perhaps increasing their lifespan slightly (I doubt it makes too a huge difference either way though to be honest).


  • #4
    Hal Emmerich
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,078 ✭✭✭Hal Emmerich


    Thanks guys, good info there.

    External HDD came Marco, it's a Boy!!!:)


  • #5
    marco_polo
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 10,088 Mod ✭✭✭✭marco_polo


    Hal Emmerich wrote: »
    Thanks guys, good info there.

    External HDD came Marco, it's a Boy!!!:)

    Good stuff, it survived the Amazon Conveyor belt then :p


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