Does high disk utilisation affect life-span of HDD?

[Managed Services]

I have been asked the question as to whether a high disk utilisation (we're taking 70%-80% or so, not 90% or above!) has an adverse effect on the health of a hard drive...

Personally I think it has no more effect than a 10% utilisation and that a hard drive's lifespan is determined by:
1. Its build quality.
2. Access frequency (i.e. smaller companies will suffer less failures due to smaller number of users etc.)
3. Cooling.

What say you?

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

I have found that disks that are allowed to sit off for long periods of time are more likely to fail than heavily used disks.

I agree with you on item 1.

I have seen no evidence among the few disk failures I've experienced to back up item 2.

I agree with you on item 3.

High temperatures and bad airflow can cause disk failure to happen much faster.

I just shipped two systems from Chicago to Israel in a shippinig container and lost my first disk yesterday. Temperature control is not a problem, I happen to have AC and a cool apartment here.

Dust is a problem. I have to clean the disk faces once a week to get accumulated dust off and shut down every month or so to more thoroughly clean things up.

That should not be a factor in a disk failure.

I think a bad slot in a jbod, which almost nobody uses anymore contributed to my failure.

SEP

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

Not really the effect will not be that much if the data is uniqly spread.

An hard disk has some internal bad block reallocation, when this space is fully utilized it can not further map bad blocks and shall be replaced.

In my opinion the accessive utilization on one particular area from disk will cause more problems to its life. So if the disk is only 10 % (Storage Capacity wise))utilized but the utilization is very heavy within that area, the failure of even one cylinder in this area will make in unusable allthough rest 90% of the cylinders of the disk were even hardly used ever.


HTH,
Devender

[NathanK]

I agree with the respondents. The drives are already spinning, regardless of how much they are being accessed. Utilization only will effect the needle and it's nearly impossible to wear one of those down.

[Managed Services]

Thanks for the responses guys!

[Ted Buis]

SCSI, FC and SAS drives are designed for 100% duty cycle. ATA and SATA drives are designed for a lower duty cycle (~40% I think), so these drives can fail more frequently with high use. You will also see much lower manufacturer warranties on the ATA and SATA drives.