Can Constant RAR/UNRAR cause drive failure?

[kony]

Have fun explaining how come drives that are used in data
intensive situations dont failure do to head arm mechanism failure.

1) You haven't established that they don't fail due to head
arm mechanism failure.

2) It wouldn't even have to be head-arm, merely doing that
I/O causes more power consumption, heat, as mentioned
previously (and below).

3) You haven't established that drives used in data
intensive apps live as long as they otherwise would. By the
same token, neither have I established they'd be shorter
lived by any statistically significant evidence, primarily
because I don't know of any available.

What we are still looking at is cause for failure of an
electromechanical product, with you arguing that mechanical
and electrical stress isn't a factor.

No they dont if they are adequately cooled with that sort of data use.

No matter how great your cooling, they do consume more
power, thermal density in the chips is higher and their core
temperatures rise. Gale-force arctic cooling removes what
is conducted away but all else being equal, the chip is
hotter, the frame is hotter, the bearings are hotter from
the use than if drive was just sitting idle.

That doesn't mean it won't help to keep a drive adequately
cooled at all, it's just that you recognize the merits of
cooling but dismiss the reason for the cooling and that
subcomponents are still rising to a higher temp, as we're
considering one variable in an otherwise fixed environment.

Oh, basic stuff like power on hours with
bearings, start and stop cycles, etc etc etc.

So you don't think this use of the drive would require power
on hours, start and stop cycles, etc? Seems pretty
manditory that it requires quite a bit of one or the other
if not both.

Most modern drives dont fail due to failure of
the electromechanical components now anyway.

If you prefer electronics and mechanicals, ok.

Much more likely in fact than your silly line.

It was never a question of whether recalibration was
possible or likely, rather why all of a sudden this seems
noticed rather than something exhibited all along since
first day of use.

Wrong again given that XP doesnt even spin down
drives by default with desktop drives anymore.

Yes, I keep forgetting that nobody ever changes any of those
sacred windows default settings. Good old 640x480
resolution rules!

 

[Rod Speed]

1) You haven't established that they don't fail due to head arm mechanism failure.

Yes I have, that produces quite specific symptoms.

2) It wouldn't even have to be head-arm, merely doing that I/O causes
more power consumption, heat, as mentioned previously (and below).

Have fun explaining how come PVRs arent notorious for eating drives.

Keep desperately digging, you'll be out in china any day now, again.

3) You haven't established that drives used in data
intensive apps live as long as they otherwise would.

Wrong, PVRs prove just that.

By the same token, neither have I established they'd
be shorter lived by any statistically significant evidence,
primarily because I don't know of any available.

But you proclaim that it must be so anyway. Funny that.

What we are still looking at is cause for failure of
an electromechanical product, with you arguing
that mechanical and electrical stress isn't a factor.

Never ever said anything even remotely resembling anything
like that, you pathetic excuse for a lying bullshit artist.

No matter how great your cooling, they do consume more power,

Irrelevant to whether that will cause earlier
failure, you pathetic excuse for a bullshit artist.

thermal density in the chips is higher and their core temperatures rise.

Irrelevant to whether that will cause earlier
failure, you pathetic excuse for a bullshit artist.

Gale-force arctic cooling removes what is conducted
away but all else being equal, the chip is hotter, the
frame is hotter, the bearings are hotter from
the use than if drive was just sitting idle.

Irrelevant to whether that will cause earlier
failure, you pathetic excuse for a bullshit artist.

That doesn't mean it won't help to keep a drive adequately
cooled at all, it's just that you recognize the merits of
cooling but dismiss the reason for the cooling and that
subcomponents are still rising to a higher temp, as we're
considering one variable in an otherwise fixed environment.

Lying, as always when even you have noticed that you're deep in that hole.

So you don't think this use of the drive would
require power on hours, start and stop cycles, etc?

Pathetic, really.

Seems pretty manditory that it requires quite a bit of one or the other if not both.

Pathetic, really.

If you prefer electronics and mechanicals, ok.

Pathetic, really.

It was never a question of whether recalibration was possible or likely,

Pathetic, really.

rather why all of a sudden this seems noticed rather
than something exhibited all along since first day of use.

Pathetic, really.

Yes, I keep forgetting that nobody ever changes any of those sacred
windows default settings. Good old 640x480 resolution rules!

Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

 

[Bob Brown]

Doing the math, 3 x 25 x 300 = ~ 22GB

If you are doing this continually, yes it will put more
wear on a drive than if you didn't. Wear on drive will
eventually cause drive failure, but it's not the kind of
thing you could predict with a calendar and shouldn't reduce
the lifespan below a few years.





When is thump/clank present?
Is it possible you have always had the noise but the drive
isn't screwed in tight or something else in the case is
loose? Minor drive noises can be amplified by the chassis.

The clanking noise sometimes happens when virtually nothing is going
on, like just reading an already loaded web page. It will clank 2-3
times and then just go back to the old background chatter noise for 30
seconds.

It also occurs if I play a large video file, say larger than 100mb in
size.

Also it will do the clank noise if I run spybot or ad-aware, about 50%
of the time it will do the clank noise.

I can't describe the noise any better than to say when it clanks it
startles me and I begin to stare at the box worried something terrible
just happen.

If it is actually making a new loud noise, it does tend to
signal a problem IF the use was the same (otherwise, it
would tend to depend on what/when the noise occurs), and you
should run the manufacturer's diagnostics on it.

The only one they offer appears to require a burning of a cd/dvd. I
don't have a floppy drive, but who does?

I won't even get into why you are constantly raring and
uraring these files everyday, but there may be a less
resource intensive way to get the job done.

I think everyone knows why I RAR/UNRAR encrypted passworded files a
few times a day [and those RAR's are even in a hidden encrypted folder
that requires a password], plus I have the Hidden attribute on the
folder.

Yes, any junior highschooler could crack it but it just makes me feel
better

 

[Ed Medlin]

Hardly. I and millions of people have maxtors running fine.
"some" of them may have problems if allowed to run hot, but
then "some" Seagates do too, so it isn't the kind of blanket
statement that can be applied to an entire brand.

Further, today many of the lower end Maxtors aren't even
Maxtors, they're the same Seagate drives that merely have
warranty reduced from 5 years to 3.

Essentially what you are doing is thinking "maxtor drive
failed, must be because maxtor is crap", but then if any
other drive fails, you dismiss it instead of making same
presumption about the other brand as well.

Don't get me wrong, Maxtor isn't my first pick but having
bought a ton of them pretty cheap over the past few years
after rebate, they don't seem to have even remotely close to
the problems you allude to.

Within the past year Maxtor failure rate (this is just for me) has been
about 30-35% over about 60 days. That is one out of every three. They have a
major problem right now and I don't have a clue what has happened with them.
Over 10yrs, I have had only a two WD failures that I remember. With Samsung,
none at all. Like I said, this is just my own experience and not necessarily
a very scientific one.... I do have one Maxtor drive in this system for
general storage that has been going fine for a year or so. It's partner that
was once in a raid array with it failed just as the warranty ended (of
course). It is a bit noisy, but not the failure type of noise. The four WD
drives are almost silent. None are Raptors.

Ed

 

[Ed Medlin]

Doing the math, 3 x 25 x 300 = ~ 22GB

If you are doing this continually, yes it will put more
wear on a drive than if you didn't. Wear on drive will
eventually cause drive failure, but it's not the kind of
thing you could predict with a calendar and shouldn't reduce
the lifespan below a few years.





When is thump/clank present?
Is it possible you have always had the noise but the drive
isn't screwed in tight or something else in the case is
loose? Minor drive noises can be amplified by the chassis.

The clanking noise sometimes happens when virtually nothing is going
on, like just reading an already loaded web page. It will clank 2-3
times and then just go back to the old background chatter noise for 30
seconds.

It also occurs if I play a large video file, say larger than 100mb in
size.

Also it will do the clank noise if I run spybot or ad-aware, about 50%
of the time it will do the clank noise.

I can't describe the noise any better than to say when it clanks it
startles me and I begin to stare at the box worried something terrible
just happen.

If it is actually making a new loud noise, it does tend to
signal a problem IF the use was the same (otherwise, it
would tend to depend on what/when the noise occurs), and you
should run the manufacturer's diagnostics on it.

The only one they offer appears to require a burning of a cd/dvd. I
don't have a floppy drive, but who does?

I won't even get into why you are constantly raring and
uraring these files everyday, but there may be a less
resource intensive way to get the job done.

I think everyone knows why I RAR/UNRAR encrypted passworded files a
few times a day [and those RAR's are even in a hidden encrypted folder
that requires a password], plus I have the Hidden attribute on the
folder.

Yes, any junior highschooler could crack it but it just makes me feel
better

Like Rod said, it seems the drive is constantly recalibrating itself and is
failing. Get your important data off it asap if you can.

Ed

 

[philo]

I have about 25 files which are RAR'd and I constantly RAR and UNRAR
them, almost 3 times per day. Each RAR is about 300MB in size.

I was wondering if doing this constantly would begin to or cause drive
failure?

I ask because I've noticed a loud "thump/clank" noise from the drive
that wasn't there before. It's a "Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L080P0 80GB
7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive" if that helps answer my
question.

Get a new drive at once as your present drive is about to totally fail.
The Un-raring did not cause the failure...but it makes no sense to
continually RAR and unRAR them.

If you are doing so to save HD space...then it's sort of a blessing (in a
way ) that your present drive is "shot"...
You can now get a larger drive!

 

[Bob Brown]

Get a new drive at once as your present drive is about to totally fail.
The Un-raring did not cause the failure...but it makes no sense to
continually RAR and unRAR them.

If you are doing so to save HD space...then it's sort of a blessing (in a
way ) that your present drive is "shot"...
You can now get a larger drive!

So, everyone, well most, are in agreement that I should go with a
Western Digital drive with at least 200GB?

Is their a chart online which shows preferred drives?
Sorta like a ratings chart?

thanks to [ALL] who have replied.

 

[kony]

Have fun explaining how come the return rate got so bad that Maxtor went bust.

Have fun citing references for this conclusion.

 

[HDRDTD]

So, everyone, well most, are in agreement that I should go with a
Western Digital drive with at least 200GB?

Is their a chart online which shows preferred drives?
Sorta like a ratings chart?

Here's some good information..
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/16/2007-hdd-rundown/

thanks to [ALL] who have replied.

 

[Rod Speed]

Have fun citing references for this conclusion.

Even someone as stupid as you should be able to
look at their financials, if someone was actually stupid
enough to lend you a seeing eye dog and a white cane.

 

[Rod Speed]

So, everyone, well most, are in agreement that I should go with a
Western Digital drive with at least 200GB?

Nope, I much prefer Samsungs myself. WDs have a
stupid jumper scheme if you dont use cable select or SATA.

Is their a chart online which shows preferred drives?
Sorta like a ratings chart?
Nope.

thanks to [ALL] who have replied.

 

[JAD]

What you are asking is 'Does using my hard drive, in a manner that is
consistent with NORMAL use, damage or kill my drive faster?'

It would be expected to last for the manufacturers specified life span or
more, not dying early because you 'used' it.

Maxtors (for whatever the reason) are a topic of failure here quite often. I
suppose that if I looked at it closely, I replace Maxtors more often than
others. However that would be based on how many were sold, and I find that
quite often when a new tech comes out , the first to have the bigger/ faster
sells lots, and then therefor will seem to have more failures. I have never
gone wrong watching the trends in this group for years now. I don't use
Maxtor drives currently. WD or Samsung, whichever can give me the best GPD.


Gigs per dollar

 

[kony]

Even someone as stupid as you should be able to
look at their financials, if someone was actually stupid
enough to lend you a seeing eye dog and a white cane.

So you're saying you made a vague guess of cause and effect,
instead of factoring for how they'd practically given away
drives for years with AR prices averaging $35 or so.

If you've actually had several fail, that's a shame. It
doesn't change that mine work and since the only
environmental control I can impose for any kind of test is
those here that work, the only conclusion I can draw is that
no matter how much you dislike them, your claims are quite
blown out of proportion.

They're not my favorite brand or anything like that, but I
have no complaints for the price paid.

 

[Rod Speed]

So you're saying you made a vague guess of cause and effect,

Nope, not saying anything even remotely resembling anything like that either.

instead of factoring for how they'd practically given away
drives for years with AR prices averaging $35 or so.

Even Maxtor would have enough of a clue to not sell
drives for less than it cost to make them, ****wit.

Its harder to estimate what the return rate will
be when setting the selling price tho, ****wit.

If you've actually had several fail, that's a shame.

Nope, I'm not actually stupid enough to buy them thanks, ****wit.

It doesn't change that mine work

Irrelevant to whether the return rate sent Maxtor broke, ****wit.

and since the only environmental control I can impose for
any kind of test is those here that work, the only conclusion
I can draw is that no matter how much you dislike them,
your claims are quite blown out of proportion.

Have fun explaining how come the return
rate got so bad that Maxtor went bust.

They're not my favorite brand or anything like that,
but I have no complaints for the price paid.

Irrelevant to the FACT that the return rate on their drives sent Maxtor bust.

 

[spodosaurus]

Hardly. I and millions of people have maxtors running fine.
"some" of them may have problems if allowed to run hot, but
then "some" Seagates do too, so it isn't the kind of blanket
statement that can be applied to an entire brand.

Yes, it can, as a higher percentage of drive failures than other
manufacturers. We refuse to use them anymore at the office after every
bloody one died (not the same model, and not sourced from the same
locations, either!)



--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply
Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow transplant. Please
volunteer to be a marrow donor and literally save someone's life:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[kony]

Yes, it can, as a higher percentage of drive failures than other
manufacturers. We refuse to use them anymore at the office after every
bloody one died (not the same model, and not sourced from the same
locations, either!)

As I've written already, mine are running fine and are in
the only environment I can control to make any reasonable
conclusion.

I've heard plenty of stories over the years about how people
think they know it all about using poor PSU, chassis that
don't provide enough airflow for drives (like the newer
cases that rotate drives 90' so the data cable is accessible
from the side).

Perhaps the systems you have in mind didn't have those
problems and the drives still failed. It would be
unfortunate, but very strange that you have these problems
when others don't.

Note that I have never claimed they don't have a higher
failure rate, but a little higher is not same as the bizarre
tales being told about "every bloody one died". I find that
so exteremely unlikely that it must have been a system
configuration, not drive problem.

I could be lucky to have better results with these drives,
but I'm not THAT lucky. There is something else besides the
drives to blame.

 

[OSbandito]

Bob Brown wrote:

Yes, any junior highschooler could crack it but it just makes me feel
better

...but those pictures of you in the rubber suit are rather fetching. Just
remember the problem with static-electricity.

 

[Bob Brown]

Bob Brown wrote:


..but those pictures of you in the rubber suit are rather fetching. Just
remember the problem with static-electricity.

wow, a person with as warped humor as my own.

 

[Bink B]

well then get ready with the razor blade. wd250s are crap

Never had a single prob with any of the 100's of WDs I installed as
opposed to Maxtors and Seagates. What are your hard drives of choice and
why?

B