... and I couldn't agree more. When end users come to me with a problem, the first question out of my mouth is almost invariably "Have you rebooted your machine?" Why is this my first question? Because rebooting fixes problems approximately 60% of the time. (I'm pulling this statistic out of my @$$, so don't quote me. The point is, rebooting fixes $h!+.)
i like to run a full virus scan every day (i have a 60gb hard drive) and someone told me that it's hard on the drive to be spun up for the like 45 mins a day it takes for the scan, and that it will wear out faster - is this true?
It's true that running ANYTHING a lot will reduce its life-span, but running a 45 minute virus scan every day won't make much difference.
Depending on what you use your computer for, your drive tends to be in use most of the time anyway while your computer accesses your swapfile etc.
However, unless you're doing a LOT of downloading, it's not really necessary to run a full virus check every single day, once a week will do...but even running a full check TWICE a day won't have a significant impact on the life-span or reliability of your drive.
3 comments:
... and I couldn't agree more. When end users come to me with a problem, the first question out of my mouth is almost invariably "Have you rebooted your machine?" Why is this my first question? Because rebooting fixes problems approximately 60% of the time. (I'm pulling this statistic out of my @$$, so don't quote me. The point is, rebooting fixes $h!+.)
dear geekology,
i like to run a full virus scan every day (i have a 60gb hard drive) and someone told me that it's hard on the drive to be spun up for the like 45 mins a day it takes for the scan, and that it will wear out faster - is this true?
Anonymous,
It's true that running ANYTHING a lot will reduce its life-span, but running a 45 minute virus scan every day won't make much difference.
Depending on what you use your computer for, your drive tends to be in use most of the time anyway while your computer accesses your swapfile etc.
However, unless you're doing a LOT of downloading, it's not really necessary to run a full virus check every single day, once a week will do...but even running a full check TWICE a day won't have a significant impact on the life-span or reliability of your drive.
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