Disc drive head wear through defragging?

[Jonty]

We all know the benefits of defragging our hard drives - accessing data more quickly and accurately, and also less wear and tear on the read/write head as it doesn't need to jump about all over the place after fragmented pieces of data.

However, whilst defragging one of my drives this evening a thought struck me about wear and tear on the heads. The defrag took two hours and twenty minutes with the heads accessing all the time shifting stuff around. Surely this 140 minutes of activity is equal to quite a few hours of normal head activity?

Would the heads last longer without regular defragging? They would surely? Would it matter if the drives weren't done at all? Or perhaps only once or twice a year?

Don't get me wrong, I regularily defrag my drives but is it really necessary, or is it causing more physical harm than good?

[AuraEdge]

By not defragging, it will have to make more revolutions every time it looks for data, and read from many different places on the harddrive, as much as that file is fragmented.
Access time is faster with defragging, and that equates to less time being accessed.

I still believe that defragging causes less wear (relatively alot over 2 hours), than if you spent like a month with an undefragged drive.

[justy]

I can see your point, but the reality is, that the wear that is being caused by defrag, is relatively comparable to drive access not defragging. The difference is performance on the drive.
You could probably sustain the life of the drive slightly longer not defragging, but to the decrement of system performance.
With technology moving so quickly, a drive will outlive your requirments of it. Assuming it doesn't have a premature crash/failure.

This is my point of view, anyone differ?

All the best, Justy.

[GroundZero3]

i see where you are coming from but i mean just accessing your hard drive is wear and tear. hard drives are designed for those types of wear and tear. except where you shake them around while there running. then you have some problems.
i believe its neccasy. i notice a big improvment in my preformance after a defrag

JaYsin

[Richard_Cranium72]

With the exception of the Chinese Click of Death Virus, the major cause of HD death is bearing failure.

All the hoopla about leaving the thing running 24/7 to "SAVE" the solder joints on the mobo is baloney(IMHO)nowadays anyhow.

De-Frag away without fear, I doubt you'll rip the head off the HD by doing it..

DrVette

[dosmastr]

when you defrag, you move everything once, if you don't defrag, every time you open that file, your drive has to seek all over, yes it is true that its alot of activity at once, but in the long run its less then leaving the drive alone. IMHO anyway.

but today if you don't delete all that much and have a drive more then large enough for your needs it will take quite some time to get fragmented, i have a 27GB drive, i have about 23Gb that is just backups of CD's i'm afraid will go dead sometime soon, i have 2gb free, and i use 2gb activly, i never have more then that 2GB to defrag.
but if the drive is too small and you are constantly deleting and adding stuff, then hey.

sorry to be such a run-on

[BFlurie]

'Member, the heads don't physically touch anything -- they are very close to the platter. The spindle bearing is getting the same "wear" whenever the drive is spinning regardless of what the head is doing. The head movement mechanism "wears" from reading & writing. Don't worry about any of it.

[nilknarf]

You got it BFlurie!

Those drive heads sit only a few thousandths of an inch off the platter (which is why they don't react well to being jolted while operating)!

The only parts actually being 'worn' are the spindle bearing and the head pivot bearing. Bearings don't normally wear down very quickly. The only other moving part in a HD is the head parking lock. Which is only used to lock the heads in a park position to prevent damage when the drive is off.

In my experience, the drive is more likely to suffer electonics or platter failure before the moving parts fail. I have drvies up to ten years old which are still working. On the other hand, I have drives only a few months old, which have failed.

In other words, don't worry about the ussage of your drive. It's not likely to wear down anytime soon.

Tim

[Roy]

BFlurie, nilknarf and ALL ~ You'll be surprised to learn that the heads make momentary contact with the platter "all the time". The materials are so hard that it doesn't matter. If you think about it, leaving a VCR in "Pause" for one minute causes the heads to wipe the same place on the tape about 15,000 times!

I learned this from a family member whose company makes the chips that account for the changes due to heat of friction when contact happens. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[Jonty]

Roy, thats interesting what you say. When I posted this question and refered to wear on the heads I meant 'electronic' wear and whether over time the recording and reading capabilities could be weakened. All the stuff I've read about hdd's is that the heads never touch the surface apart from when they are parked.

[Roy]

Hmm. "Electronic wear" ... Read/Write heads are coils of wire wrapped around a pole piece. The transformers in electrical devices are the same thing on a larger scale. I've never heard of molecular electromigration killing these devices the way it does semiconductor microcircuits.

[Jonty]

Roy, I see your point now. I didn't really think this one through. How can coils wear out?! As you say - they can't!

You have answered my question very well and I won't worry about defragging next time!!! Thanks

[Jonty]

Thanks for all your input on this one. I use the Norton Speed Disk to do mine, and it seems to do a good enough job of it too. I can't say I notice that much of a difference in access times before and after defragging, but I always defragg when the warning is at about 97% not fragmented.

I suppose it depends on what you do with the computer really.

Anyway, thanks again all for putting my mind at rest on this one - I kind of worry about these things!!!

[stevenvee]

Richard Cranium,

You are absolutely correct. That's why I buy IBM. They buy abec 7 bearings vs. much lower quality for all the other manufacturers. Such as Abec 5 and lower.

Bearings are my life.

If we could get the hdd manufacturers to step up like the guys that build dentist drills we'd all be happy. At hdd spindle speeds the bearing would last longer than most turtles. But who wants to pay an extra 40 bucks for a hard drive.

Steve

[This message has been edited by stevenvee (edited 02-08-2001).]