Best kind of hard drive for heavy use?

[RW]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2016 09:55:23 -0500 (CDT)
Valeri Galtsev wrote:

> On Wed, September 14, 2016 8:33 am, RW via freebsd-questions wrote:

> > Drives are typically rated for 300k load-cycles, so at 30 minutes
> > it's a non-issue - running the drive cooler and avoiding wear on
> > the moving parts probably extends its life.
> >  
> 
> Disagree. It is actually an opposite. Spinning down is the same as
> turning the drive off: ... This is a big stress, and mechanism can
> withstand only this number of such bangs. 

And the manufacturer quotes a value for that number of 300,000.

The problematic WD drives went into standby after a fraction of a
minute, so it was possible for them to fail prematurely. With a 30
minute timeout it would take 17 years of pathologically bad misuse to
reach the rated value. 

> To the contrary, keeping
> platters spinning does not apply any stress onto any mechanical
> parts, except bearings, which can live very long, especially if
> platter assembly is very well balanced and bearings are well designed
> and manufactured.

But you go on to say that consumer grade drives aren't designed to
spin for a long-time which contradicts that.

>  In any case, "consumer" grade drives never come
> to composite time of use like 8-10 years (drives on many servers are
> up and always hot for about this long),

As it happens I have a dock next to my TV that contains two drive that
were manufactured in 2005 and 2009 and they are both still in good
condition. If they'd being spinning 24/7 they'd both be long since
dead. 

It seems to me that if you want to maximize the life of a consumer
drive you have to let it spin-down.