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Originally Posted by chetan331
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Hey don't format your drive often as it reduces the hard disk life's and its capability to store data
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Now how does this happen? I've heard this thing from many people
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Maybe those people vaguely heard about low-level formatting which is certainly very stressful and should be done only when absolutely necessary. The usual logical formatting is much less stressful.
Regarding normal formatting, this is one of those half-truths that you can neither accept nor disregard totally. Another example of a half-truth is this : Some people advocate NEVER turning off a computer because many of the components suffer some extra stress during the first few seconds of powering on. While this is undeniably true, those same components and others are under continuous (if less) stress while running.
Take a hard disk as an example. If you run your computer 24/7, the platter bearings will wear out more quickly than if you run it 5 hrs a day, and the chips and capacitors will have to endure continuous heating and electrical stress. OTOH, they will suffer fewer surge currents and fewer thermal (heating-cooling) cycles that can cause material fatigue and eventual failure.
So which one is preferable - always on or regular on-off cycle ? IMHO, an intelligent compromise is best. That is, don't turn off your computer for short idle periods such as having dinner, but don't leave it on the whole day while you're away at work.
The R/W head of a HDD goes through a longer continuous stress while formatting than during a normal read-write process. Also, all individual sectors of the magnetic coating on a platter are subjected to the magnetisation cycle. But few people are going to format their HDDs everyday or even every week or month, so an occasional formatting once in a while will not appreciably shorten its life.
BTW, it's a good idea to give your HDD a chance to cool down for a while after a full format or after copying several GBs of data.
formatting the computer
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Linear Mode
