Formatting hard disk 4

[itsmystie]

Is there a limit as to the number of times a hard disk can be formatted?

 

[cjelec]

There is a usage limit on all hardware, you may here of this from test results, for example '2,000,000 read/write operations' or '20 years life expectancy'.

Other than that, hard drive formatting would not be limited.

 

[franklin97355]

I suppose there is a physical limit of the hardware but there is no counter that says you can't do it more that X times if that is what you mean.

The answer is "42"

 

[edfair]

It isn't a usage limit. It is a set of specifications for MTTF (mean time to failure) which is SWAG considering the quality of the components used to manufacture the drive.
MTTF is a measure of how long you can expect the drive to last. Half will fail before and half after.

One example is the CMS 10mb hard drive used in the IBM PCAT. It had a design spec of something like 50,000 power on hours but 1/3 were dead on the first powerup, another 1/3 died in the first 30 days.

I would suspect that continuous formatting would cause failure long before the theoretical design limits were reached. There is some force applied to the heads as they change direction and over time it probably would loosen the heads. Or the pivots would wear in the head carrage assembly. Or the traces in the chips delivering write current would erode away.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[burtsbees]

Most failures I have had were the r/w heads scratching the surface of the platens, making an unrecoverable bad spot.
Formatting the drive too many times could easily cause this, as edfair suggests.

Burt