Had standard Sky Digital for about 8 years but about eleven days ago we 
upgraded to Sky+

We have a couple of Philips DVD/Hard Drive recorders in the house that use 
the Gemstar GUIDE Plus+ EPG, and the data for that is carried on British 
Eurosport (Sky channel 410) and the recorders update their EPG's overnight.

Current circumstances mean that I'm at home a lot and during the day I like 
to listen to Planet Rock, a classic rock radio station on Sky channel 0110, 
so this means that, between the need for Eurosport during the night and my 
rock music during the day, the Sky box is on almost 24/7. This didn't bother 
me too much with the old Sky digibox (which hadn't been turned off in the 
three years since getting the first recorder) but the Sky + box, of course, 
has a hard drive in it and so this is also spinning 24/7 as well.

Ignoring the cost of the electricity and the environmental issues (*please* 
let's not get bogged down in those) but looking from a purely technical 
aspect, is this OK for the hard drive, or is it a bad idea? Sky + was 
installed on Friday 18th and the box has not been switched off since then, 
nor is it likely to be unless someone tells me it's likely to self-destruct 
under this sort of use.

Again, I'm not bothered in the sense that it's under 12-month warranty so if 
it goes bust, I know it'll be fixed. What I *am* bothered about is that we 
only record programmes we want to see, and because we want to see them, I 
don't want to lose them in a hard drive failure.

John

In article , John says...

> Ignoring the cost of the electricity and the environmental issues (*please* 
> let's not get bogged down in those) but looking from a purely technical 
> aspect, is this OK for the hard drive, or is it a bad idea? Sky + was 
> installed on Friday 18th and the box has not been switched off since then, 
> nor is it likely to be unless someone tells me it's likely to self-destruct 
> under this sort of use.
> 
Mine lasted nearly 4 years. Failed recordings and lockups in playback 
are the signs it's starting to go. I just chose the opportunity to 
upgrade the storage capacity and shoved a larger IDE drive in. Plenty 
of info on the net for doing it.


-- 
Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't 
looking good either. - Scott Adams

Conor wrote:
> In article , John says...
>
>> Ignoring the cost of the electricity and the environmental issues
>> (*please* let's not get bogged down in those) but looking from a
>> purely technical aspect, is this OK for the hard drive, or is it a
>> bad idea? Sky + was installed on Friday 18th and the box has not
>> been switched off since then, nor is it likely to be unless someone
>> tells me it's likely to self-destruct under this sort of use.
>>
> Mine lasted nearly 4 years. Failed recordings and lockups in playback
> are the signs it's starting to go. I just chose the opportunity to
> upgrade the storage capacity and shoved a larger IDE drive in. Plenty
> of info on the net for doing it.

Cheers Conor, that's good to know. I'm not going to invalidate the warranty 
but yeah, as soon as the 12-months is up and I can open the box myself, a 
bigger drive will be going in. I believe 500GB is the limit they can handle 
at the moment but who knows, in another 12 months that may have been 
increased  :o)

John

John wrote:
> Ignoring the cost of the electricity and the environmental issues
> (*please* let's not get bogged down in those) but looking from a
> purely technical aspect, is this OK for the hard drive, or is it a
> bad idea? Sky + was installed on Friday 18th and the box has not been
> switched off since then, nor is it likely to be unless someone tells
> me it's likely to self-destruct under this sort of use.

Unlikely to cause problems. Google, in a study of failures amongst 100,000 
of their commercial hard drives, reported in 2007: "Our data indicate a much 
weaker correlation between utilisation levels and failures than previous 
work has suggested"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6376021.stm

"Pyriform"  wrote in message 
news:kr6dnek2fLamnIrVnZ2dnUVZ8t2snZ2d@pipex.net...
> John wrote:
>> Ignoring the cost of the electricity and the environmental issues
>> (*please* let's not get bogged down in those) but looking from a
>> purely technical aspect, is this OK for the hard drive, or is it a
>> bad idea? Sky + was installed on Friday 18th and the box has not been
>> switched off since then, nor is it likely to be unless someone tells
>> me it's likely to self-destruct under this sort of use.
>
> Unlikely to cause problems. Google, in a study of failures amongst 100,000 
> of their commercial hard drives, reported in 2007: "Our data indicate a 
> much weaker correlation between utilisation levels and failures than 
> previous work has suggested"
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6376021.stm

They don't say what "utilisation levels" mean. Do they mean reading and 
writing data, or just having the disk spinning? I imagine Google have all 
their disks spinning all the time.

-- 
Max Demian

In message 67om13F2p0ds2U1@mid.individual.net,
Max Demian  Proclaimed from the tallest tower:

> "Pyriform"  wrote in message
> news:kr6dnek2fLamnIrVnZ2dnUVZ8t2snZ2d@pipex.net...
>> John wrote:
>>> Ignoring the cost of the electricity and the environmental issues
>>> (*please* let's not get bogged down in those) but looking from a
>>> purely technical aspect, is this OK for the hard drive, or is it a
>>> bad idea? Sky + was installed on Friday 18th and the box has not
>>> been switched off since then, nor is it likely to be unless someone
>>> tells me it's likely to self-destruct under this sort of use.
>>
>> Unlikely to cause problems. Google, in a study of failures amongst
>> 100,000 of their commercial hard drives, reported in 2007: "Our data
>> indicate a much weaker correlation between utilisation levels and
>> failures than previous work has suggested"
>>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6376021.stm
>
> They don't say what "utilisation levels" mean. Do they mean reading
> and writing data, or just having the disk spinning? I imagine Google
> have all their disks spinning all the time.

I don't know the answer to that, but I would have thought they would know 
which disks got the most use (ie read/wrote the most data) and factored that 
into their figures...

-- 
Regards,
Chris.
(Remove Elvis's shoes to email me)

In article , Pyriform wrote:
> John wrote:
> > Ignoring the cost of the electricity and the environmental issues
> > (*please* let's not get bogged down in those) but looking from a
> > purely technical aspect, is this OK for the hard drive, or is it a
> > bad idea? Sky + was installed on Friday 18th and the box has not been
> > switched off since then, nor is it likely to be unless someone tells
> > me it's likely to self-destruct under this sort of use.
> 
> Unlikely to cause problems. Google, in a study of failures amongst 100,000 
> of their commercial hard drives, reported in 2007: "Our data indicate a much 
> weaker correlation between utilisation levels and failures than previous 
> work has suggested"
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6376021.stm 

And here's some ofwhat it says-
                            -------------------
There is a widely held belief that hard disks which are subject to heavy use 
are more likely to fail than those used intermittently. It was also thought 
that hard drives preferred cool temperatures to hotter environments.

The authors wrote: "We expected to notice a very strong and consistent 
correlation between high utilisation and higher failure rates.

"However our results appear to paint a more complex picture. First, only very 
young and very old age groups appear to show the expected behaviour."
                            -------------------
Surprise surprise! Increased failure rates in very old and very young units is 
completely in accordance with the well-known "bathtub curve". Why would anyone 
expect anything different?

Rod.

Roderick Stewart wrote:
> And here's some ofwhat it says-
>                            -------------------
> There is a widely held belief that hard disks which are subject to
> heavy use are more likely to fail than those used intermittently. It
> was also thought that hard drives preferred cool temperatures to
> hotter environments.
>
> The authors wrote: "We expected to notice a very strong and consistent
> correlation between high utilisation and higher failure rates.
>
> "However our results appear to paint a more complex picture. First,
> only very young and very old age groups appear to show the expected
>                            behaviour." -------------------
> Surprise surprise! Increased failure rates in very old and very young
> units is completely in accordance with the well-known "bathtub
> curve". Why would anyone expect anything different?

Yes, but the rather more subtle point is that in the middle of the bathtub, 
failure rates were largely independent of utilisation. I haven't seen the 
original paper (the link given didn't work, and I couldn't be arsed to 
search for it), but I assume the researchers weren't being completely 
deluded in deciding that their results were worth publishing.

On Apr 29, 11:30 am, "John" <replyingroup@notemail> wrote:
> Current circumstances mean that I'm at home a lot and during the day I like
> to listen to Planet Rock, a classic rock radio station on Sky channel 0110,

Buy yourself a DAB radio and you can listen to Planet Rock on that
(its national) and switch the Sky box off.

B2003

In article , 
Boltar wrote:
> On Apr 29, 11:30 am, "John" <replyingroup@notemail> wrote:
> > Current circumstances mean that I'm at home a lot and during the day I like
> > to listen to Planet Rock, a classic rock radio station on Sky channel 0110,
> 
> Buy yourself a DAB radio and you can listen to Planet Rock on that
> (its national) and switch the Sky box off.

Or go to www.reciva.com and listen on your computer.

Rod.

In article ,
	Boltar wrote:
> On Apr 29, 11:30 am, "John" <replyingroup@notemail> wrote:
>> Current circumstances mean that I'm at home a lot and during the day I like
>> to listen to Planet Rock, a classic rock radio station on Sky channel 0110,

> Buy yourself a DAB radio and you can listen to Planet Rock on that
> (its national) and switch the Sky box off.

But for how much longer will Planet Rock be available?

Currently it's expected to go off on 30 May 2008.

-- 
Paul Martin

In article ,
	Roderick Stewart wrote:
> In article , 
> Boltar wrote:
>> On Apr 29, 11:30 am, "John" <replyingroup@notemail> wrote:
>> > Current circumstances mean that I'm at home a lot and during the day I like
>> > to listen to Planet Rock, a classic rock radio station on Sky channel 0110,
>> 
>> Buy yourself a DAB radio and you can listen to Planet Rock on that
>> (its national) and switch the Sky box off.

> Or go to www.reciva.com and listen on your computer.

<snigger> They've got "BBC 5 Live" linked to the RealPlayer stream for
Five Live Sports Extra.

-- 
Paul Martin