I got lots of emails asking about Ubuntu Linux and hard disk issue. Does it really shorten hard disk life?
Noop.
Unfortunately, some news and blogs reported news wrongly. Ubuntu doesn't touch your hard drive power management settings by default. In almost all cases, it's more likely to be your BIOS or the firmware on your hard drive (source).
Check out this official bug report for more information. On a related note, always consider backing up hard disk / data on regular basis.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Please stop talking about this nonsense! There are several reasons why hard disks fails, but CERTAINLY not because of Load_Cycle_Count.
stop talking about nonsense? c’mon man, nonsense has GOT to be talked about… anything else would be less than ideal.
Im using Gutsy and got an issue with frequent disk I/O read with my harddrive, but never blamed the OS about it yet until I can find a concrete answers.
operating system does not damage the hd, but ext3 pretty much does.. less than ntfs though, but still… ever heard a hd click while using an ext3 partition? that’s what i’m talking about.
Ubuntu DOES kill the hard drive because it doesn’t touch power management settings. Every other OS like windows, takes care of the user because they prevent the BIOS from using aggressive power management. Ubuntu needs to learn to take the blame for not realizing that laptop manufacturers use aggressive power management.
Even if you don’t think Ubuntu should be blamed. You can’t argue the lack of power management under Ubuntu is what kills ubuntu.
i.e Under Ubuntu, BIOS kills hard drive.
under Windows, BIOS prevented from killing hard drive.