[TriLUG] do hard disks have a shelf life?

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Thu, 6 Sep 2012, Steve Litt wrote:

As to Aaron's statement, the drives have been in a set of 
drawers in their antistatic bags, on a rubber mat in my 
office, which is has A/C in summer and regular heat in 
winter. There's little thermal cycling going on.

> As a former stereo repairman, if I had to guess on the 
> cause of this situation, I'd guess it would be the motor 
> bearings. After awhile, the lubricant on motor bearings 
> hardens. I would think this would happen *especially* if 
> the motor were not used for years.

that fits.

I have similar drives that sit in external enclosures and 
are powered up to run backup, for 3-12hrs, once a week. None 
of these have failed. Ones of the same type I bought at the 
same time and sat on the shelf are dead.

I guess the lesson is not to buy spare disks. It takes a 
couple of days to run badblocks on a new disk, so if a disk 
dies on me, I like to have disk ready to go. Maybe this 
isn't a great idea.

Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
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