It seems like constant scanning of your entire disk for new or changed files would put a lot of strain on your hard drive. Will a hard drive that is backed up every night fail sooner than one that is only backed up every week? Have any studies been done on this?
2007-12-07 06:35:50 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
It just so happens I am researching this topic in my grad studies. The characteristics you are referring to are seek count and duty cycle, which are part of the SMART disk reliability attributes, generalized to utilization. Most of the research done has been with data from an enterprise setting, where the disks are constantly powered and used. The results would vary for personal use. A finding of the paper "Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population" by E. Pinheiro shows that utilization is not a heavy factor in drive failures. However, older disks do see a stronger corelation.
You also have different types of backup strategies. Some very simple backup methods are dumping the entire disk every time, which is very inefficient as much of the data is consistent throughout the time period. A more common approach is to have an initial dump of the disk and then record what has changed since the initial backup. If you want to read about this, search for "checkpointing".
Realistically, you will probably throw out your disk due to lack of space before it dies. Most disks have an MTTF of over a million hours. In a single disk environment, you have little to worry about, as long as the operating conditions are kept within the specified tolerances.
2007-12-07 06:50:53 · answer #1 · answered by Jeremy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Obviously the more you access a disk the more it wears. The life of most disks now is long enough for this to be no problem, I have hundred of machines in daily use in offices and homes, which have been in use for more than 10 years, and have only had 3 disk failures in all that time.
2007-12-07 06:47:46 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's simple. The more you use it the faster it will fail. Hard drives are cheap, though, and they information that may be contained upon them is generally less so. So, pick a backup rate with the balance in mind. Even with significant daily usage, a reasonably good quality consumer drive should still last several years.
2007-12-07 06:39:41 · answer #3 · answered by John L 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I suppose it is possible, any time the disk is used you are putting more work load on it therefore aging it, but not frequently backing up can and will reduce the life expectancy of your important data ;-)
2007-12-07 06:40:19 · answer #4 · answered by Mister.Chrispy 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Heck no! (But even if it did, you'd have a backup, heh, heh.)
2007-12-07 06:38:40 · answer #5 · answered by fjpoblam 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋