Hard Disk Drives Question

[t0rek]

Is its true that HDDs get damage if they are not used for long times? How much time of unuse will damage one?

 

[bcrew1375]

I've heard that data stored on the drive can degrade over time, though I'm not sure how long it would take.

 

[Agozer]

Is its true that HDDs get damage if they are not used for long times? How much time of unuse will damage one?

I really doubt this is true. The movement of the read head and spin up/spin down are what wear down the HDD, and even then the data doesn't really degrade over time.

(Unless the HDD is subject to a shock or some other undesired effect, causing the read read to get misaligned. That's when the HDD will get busted and data is lost.)

 

[WhiteX]

This line of thought that the HDD gets damage if not used over some time says that the read head touches the discs if not powered up on a certain period of time, if it is true escapes me but most if not all the HDD i saw that were used than not used for a long time got bad blocks on a small usage time.

 

[Daniel15]

I have a Quantum 500MB that I haven't used since 1999, and I just plugged it in and it works fine (and still with 0 bad sectors). So I suppose it isn't true?