Iria

Source: TechARP
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This guide was written in response to the numerous fallacies about the hard disk drive that are still being propagated in many discussions. As you read through this guide, you may think that some of these myths may have been made up. We wished it was true. We collected these from discussions we heard or read over time.

To be honest, many articles have covered these topics. It would have been easy for someone to do a quick search online before imparting their opinions to newbies. Unfortunately, it became apparent to us that some folks just prefer to trust their innate instincts over logic and knowledge. As such, these hard drive urban legends have remained more popular than the simple truth. So, let's get down to basics and examine some of these common fallacies or myths and debunk them!

Matth

I'll Test myself against the myths before reading the rest:

*Formatting a hard drive will kill it!
Not unless it is already dying, then it may get worse

*Formatting a hard drive causes a layer of <insert material / dust of choice> to be deposited on the platter surface, creating bad sectors.
Total garbage

*Formatting the hard drive will stress the needle (head actuator).
No more than normal use, probably less

*If your hard drive has bad sectors, formatting it will cause more bad sectors to appear!
May discover more bad sectors, or clean existing ones by substitutuon

*Downloading too much *stuff* from the Internet will reduce your hard drive's lifespan.
Garbage!

*Insufficient power causes bad sectors in hard drives.
Sounds plausible, but it would be a very fine line before immediate failure

*Cheap power supplies will "slowly kill" your hard disk.
More like quickly, if they go too far out of spec

*If your hard drive keeps spinning up and down, that is because the power supply sometimes has enough power to spin up the hard drive and sometimes, it cannot provide enough power and the hard drive spins down again.
Are you sure you aren't using power management?

*Head parking is the cause of loud clicks from your hard drive.
It can be, or recalibration

*The head actuators are powered by a motor that can fail due to excessive use.
Not a common failure mode

*Frequent parking of the read/write heads will make the head actuators' motor fail earlier.
I'd worry more about other elemnts of the stop/start cycle

*The hard drive only spins up when it needs to read or write data. It spins down when it is idle.
Only if you are far too aggressive with power management

*It is better to spin down the hard drive whenever you can to reduce stress on the spindle motor.
NO!

*Sudden power cuts can cause bad sectors!
Maybe, if caught during a write in progress

*Bad sectors can be repaired just by reformatting the hard drive.
There is nothing to worry about bad sectors because you can "erase" them by formatting the hard drive.
They may disappear by substitution, but a drive throwing bad sectors is likely to throw more

*You must format your hard drive every <insert duration of choice> to improve performance.
No, just the cleanup/re-install is good enough

*The hard drive can only be installed in the horizontal position.
No

*If you want to use a hard drive in the vertical position, you must first reformat it in the vertical position!
Possibly true of old generation drives with stepper motors and real low level formatting


Now, how accurate was I?

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Mary had a little lamb,
Her father shot it dead
Now Mary takes her lamb to school,
Between two crusts of bread