Spinning

[shaunywhite]

What exactly does "spinning down the hard drive" mean? What exactly does it do? When does it occur? Is there a methodology that one could put in to effect that would make the process more efficient? ie: I understand that "spinning down the hard drive" is actually hard on the system so it occurs to me it might be better to leave your computer in a "sleep" mode, for example, rather than turning if on/off continually

[tjaymadison]

There are some answers and opinions in The PC Guide.

Click here (http://www.pcguide.com/search.htm) and search for power and management.

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[Black Swann]

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif Hi!

Just in case you haven't taken a look at the Forum info yet below is basically what states a typical hard drive has... (P.S Nice web site!)

Spin Up - The drive is spinning up folowing initial application of power and has not reached full speed (Demanding about 14 watts of power thus if the supply is marginal or overloaded the hard drive may not spin up properly)
Seek - A random access operation by the drive (sometimes using SMART) as it attempts to locate the desired track for read/write (Demands about 9 watts
Read/write - Seek completed and data is being read/written to the drive (About 5 watts)
Idle - Basic power conservation mode where the drive is spinning and all other drive circuitry is powered but the head actuator is parked or powered off (ABout 4 watts) but capable of responding to commands within 40 milliseconds
Standby (OR SPIN DOWN) - The spindle motor is not running using about 1 watt it is the main power conservation of the computer. It may take several seconds to actually respond to a command. The head actuators are parked and are probably parked on the drives 'landing zone'

On the control panel under power you can change the time it takes for the hard drives to power down if needs be. Hope this is useful to you.

Swann



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For most people hell is what they fear most... for me it's a place to get my homework done!!!