Hard drive active protection - on or off?

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hiengu · #1 Post by **hiengu** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:07 pm

I just got an IBM T41 1.7 SXGA+ 7200rpm a few days ago and really like it so far. I used to own an IBM T23. I noticed my made in China keyboard feels more tactile/louder than the T23 though, but am getting used to it.

I noticed my hard drive pauses or seems to go off when I move the laptop due to the hard drive active protection. Do you recommend me leaving hard drive active protection on or just turning it off? How useful is this feature anyways?

My concern is if it will be bad for the hard drive to be turned off/on often due to this protection scheme.

Riddil · #2 Post by **Riddil** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 5:28 pm

On on on!!! APS is a slick. If you've never done it, open the control panel for the APS... it's got an inherent coolness factor watching the "real time status" screen as you move your system around, and you can watch the picture mimic the movement perfectly. Kinda cool.

Anyhow, if you open that control panel for APS you can customize it so that it's much more choosey before parking the HDD head, and you won't have to worry about it "pausing" for times like if you're using it on your lap.

Keep in mind tho... APS is only useful if you drop the system. If it takes a good wack when it's in the middle of a write operation you'll still damage the drive. There was no inertia for APS to detect before the impact.

And don't worry about your drive being powered off too much. All that it's really doing is moving the drive head off of the platter, and parking it. It's still fully powered on, it's just that the head is in a safe spot so it won't start bouncing across the media if you drop the system.

APS is way too useful to disable.

hiengu · #3 Post by **hiengu** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:06 pm

The only option I see to adjust sensitivity is: "Temporarily ignore frequent repetitive shocks such as those experienced when in a train or automobile" ... Do you have another option that I don't know of?

If APS is only good when a laptop is dropped, then I'm not sure if it's as useful as I thought ... can a T41 really survive a fall?

Leon · #4 Post by **Leon** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:24 pm

the computer might not, but your drive has a fighting chance!

hiengu · #5 Post by **hiengu** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:24 am

Do you keep APS on yourself? Anyone here with a T41 / T42 who doesn't use it?

The thing that concerns me is that I can hear my drive pausing (sounds more like powering down) so not sure if this is such a good thing when I move it a bit.

esquire · #6 Post by **esquire** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:28 am

I use the middle sensitivity setting and it works great....or atleast it hasn't shut down the drive yet for any reason.

Riddil · #7 Post by **Riddil** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 9:03 am

I don't know, maybe you have an old version of APS installed. I've downloaded & installed the latest version. With the latest version if you launch the "IBM Active Protection" control panel configurator, the 'configuration' tab has a slider that lets you adjust sensitivity. If you find that it's pausing too often just change the sensitivity to medium or low. (default is high).

That way you won't get those "false alarm" shut-downs of the drive, it'll only slide over when there really is a risk of damage.

ryan · #8 Post by **ryan** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:59 am

isn't any movement unsafe when the hard drive is writing? even the jerks while you're in an automobile?

Leon · #9 Post by **Leon** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 11:35 am

i've never had a problem......

hiengu · #10 Post by **hiengu** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 3:10 pm

Thanks for the info! The consensus seems to be to leave it on. I'm going to see if there is an update to APS with those new sensitivity settings. What I have installed right now is the default stuff from the recovery partition.

Hard drive active protection - on or off?

Hard drive active protection - on or off?

Only useful when dropped?

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