Thread: hdd endurance

I'll throw in another vote for any ole drive mounted solidly. I have been running an 7+ year old 120GB Maxtor IDE drive for the past 6 months or more in my truck. This drive has run nearly 24/7 since I purchased it and I decided that it was old enough and large enough to use as my first drive just incase I ran into the problems you are worried about. Mine is mounted vertically in a hard drive tray cut out of an old case which is screwed down to my MDF amp rack. My truck most certainly isn't the smoothest either (4x4 F350) and I am not the type to swerve around pot holes or bumps or slow down for train tracks. I have noticed it being a little sluggish to start in some colder temps (so far only down to 20° F)

If its one thing i've learned over the years with computers is backup backup backup! After having installed and configured your carputer to your liking it is a good idea to clone the hard drive. Should anything happen to the drive installed, you can swap it out with the clone. It is also a good idea to keep your media on a seperate hard drive.

Of course you could pay a little bit more for a hard drive with an accelerometer feature built in: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...&tag=attgig-20 5 year warranty to boot!

As it has been mentioned already, hard drives are alot less susceptible to shock than they used to be. Heat is still an issue.

Originally Posted by 96300NAZ

If its one thing i've learned over the years with computers is backup backup backup! After having installed and configured your carputer to your liking it is a good idea to clone the hard drive. Should anything happen to the drive installed, you can swap it out with the clone. It is also a good idea to keep your media on a seperate hard drive.

Of course you could pay a little bit more for a hard drive with an accelerometer feature built in: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...&tag=attgig-20 5 year warranty to boot!

As it has been mentioned already, hard drives are alot less susceptible to shock than they used to be. Heat is still an issue.

With the way I drive, the damn thing would always be parked. I've been focused more on noise and power consumption than shock resistence. Hmmmm.... Now, I have some thinking to do.

Originally Posted by TruckinMP3

For reference my set up handled single digit temps in Fahrenheit or negative teens in Celsius. I am currently using the cheapest desktop SATA drive I could find from the local discount hardware shop at the time of the last hardware change.

I know results vary but this tells me cold temp should not be a barrier.

have you been to AZ in the summer with your HD's? i just want to know if normal HD's will work in that 150F+ when leaving your car in parking lot while your at work for 8h, and coming and turning on car... will the HD's be fine? I'm just wondering if this doesnt reduce the life of the hd's bearing, as from what i understand the life expentency of things start to go by a larger factor when you are either near the limits or past the limits

my temp solution i would guess would be not to allow the pc to book until the ambient temp in the car is below some xF number, maybe this can be rigged up with some kind of small controller and temp reading sensor with a relay to the PSU?

Originally Posted by drutort

have you been to AZ in the summer with your HD's? i just want to know if normal HD's will work in that 150F+ when leaving your car in parking lot while your at work for 8h, and coming and turning on car... will the HD's be fine? I'm just wondering if this doesnt reduce the life of the hd's bearing, as from what i understand the life expentency of things start to go by a larger factor when you are either near the limits or past the limits

my temp solution i would guess would be not to allow the pc to book until the ambient temp in the car is below some xF number, maybe this can be rigged up with some kind of small controller and temp reading sensor with a relay to the PSU?

I have not been in southern AZ in the summer and parked in the sun for 8 plus hours.... I live and work in Colorado.

The summers get hot here but not like South AZ. We do get over 100F days.... no trouble with the PC. But I agree the extremes could shorten the life of hardware.

I would not worry too much about it.... that is part of my nature.