Active Protection Is Bad for HDD!?

[kunfuchopsticks]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=795327

Linux aside. It basically says parking the head (what AP does) often will shorten the life of the HDD.

I have noticed that Active protection is pretty sensitive even on the lowest sensitivity setting. Moving the laptop while it's on always trigger park head on lowest sensitivity.

Should we be worried about this?

[jdhurst]

No

[Wiz]

APS is supposed to stop the drive when movement is detected. For most users i guess the harddisk seldom stop because they mostly keep the PC still while in use. So in case the APS is seldom activated it's not a problem in any case. If you see that the APS stop the drive all the time i guess there is a greater chance of damage if not using APS since that probably means your PC is moved around a lot while in use. Movement of a harddisk that is in use might cause damage to the hdd, but using APS there is greater chance that will not happen since it will give you some extra protection. I never heard that APS shorten the life of the hdd, but if that is the case i believe not using APS might be even worse since that means the hdd is moved a lot while in use. Slow movement of the hdd is not a problem so i'm not saying that any movement is critical to the hdd. It's a good idea to avoid fast movements and dropping the PC though and this is where APS is very useful.

The article is about APM and not APS though. If you have the power management set to stop the hdd after a very short period of time (like 1 min) i guess the drive could be stopped a lot, but i never heard it could cause damage to the hdd. The APS shouldn't really stop the hdd often under normal use. The power management might stop the hdd often, but it depends of your settings.

So unless you move the PC a lot while in use this is not a problem with APS in any case. If you do i guess there is even more reasons to use APS.

[kc7gr]

...I'm very grateful that the drive-protection feature is there. It really does add some peace-of-mind, especially during mobile use, and I've not seen any negative effects.

Example: I do a bus-and-rail commute four days out of five during the workweek. While the suspension on the express buses is pretty decent, there is enough vibration and G-force changes to make things interesting.

My only complaint is that the laptop will freeze momentarily, for as long as ADP is active (usually no more than 5-10 seconds once triggered), and then go back to normal. Still, better that than a catastrophic drive crash.

Fortunately, the commuter rail cars are grease-smooth. Heck, they ride better than some limos I've been in! The only G-forces I get there are from accel/decel when leaving or approaching a station, respectively.

Happy travels.

[beGi]

...I'm very grateful that the drive-protection feature is there. It really does add some peace-of-mind, especially during mobile use, and I've not seen any negative effects.

I agree with this...

[Temetka]

As do I. I have always liked this feature.

[agarza]

I've been using a non-IBM 7K100 on my T42p for more than a year now with APS enabled. But I'm wondering if it's a 'must' to upgrade the drive's firmware in order to use the exclusive commands the APS issue to the drive (park/load), it seems that with the stock 5400rpm my laptop came with, when the drive parks and then load the sound is very subtle, while in the 7K100 is more 'abrupt' and more frequent (i.e. having my laptop on my legs and moving it).

So is it beneficial to upgrade the oem firmware on the 7k100 to the ibm one?