hard disk

[nas_a_2000]

I would like to know if formating the hard disk many times affects the performance of the hard disk or not?

[ReddDogg]

I have never had it hurt a hard drive before. I am guessing the fact that it is in use during the format might give it a small amout of extra workout, but nothing to shorten it's life, unless you are formatting it constantly, like 25-30 times a day or something.

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Joe Redd
MCP

[BigGeek02]

I just read a forum post on this and they said that formatting the hard drive merely performs read-write operations on the hard disk. Therefore, unless you're formatting constantly (like ReddDogg said), you should have no problems. As far as performance goes, it's good to give it a clean formatting every now and then. Gets rid of file fragments, magnetic traces of old files, etc.

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Computer Error Haiku-
"Warning: Universe Corrupt. Reboot?(Y/N)"

[Paleo Pete]

The only thing I know of that would cause any possibility of problems is that during formatting the drive is working about as hard as it ever will, except during software installations, when it works overtime. That would involve a bit of mechanical wear and tear, same as any time the drive has to spin up, move the heads, read, write, etc. It should be minimal though, I wouldn't expect it to actually cause failures.

Normal use shouldn't be a problem, the drive isn't formatted often. Formatting several times a day for a month might be a bit tough on it...

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