• Apple Final Cut Pro

  How long can I run my hard drive for?

  Posted by Noam Osband on October 22, 2015 at 4:52 am

  I’m in the middle of exporting 2 TBs of cards to Pro Res files to use in FCP X. I’m using 4 hard drives in a RAID 5 with a OWC ThunderBay. Question: can I transfer to Pro Res continuously, for 48-72 hours straight, without damaging the hard drives? Is there any limit to how long you can use a hard drive continuously for?

  thanks!

  Jason Jenkins replied 10 years, 10 months ago 5 Members · 6 Replies
• 6 Replies

• 

  Noah Kadner

  October 22, 2015 at 5:03 am

  I run mine until they die.

  Noah

  FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
  FCP eXchange – FCPX Workshops
• 

  Noam Osband

  October 22, 2015 at 5:04 am

  So I can run it a week straight without turning it off and it’ll likely be OK?
• 

  Walter Soyka

  October 22, 2015 at 5:07 am

  [Noam Osband] “So I can run it a week straight without turning it off and it’ll likely be OK?”

  I never turn off my RAIDs. They spin for years.

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Bret Williams

  October 22, 2015 at 12:03 pm

  TiVo runs a single drive constantly writing to it and immediately erasing for the lifetime of the machine. All DVRs are that way. That’s just insane. SSDs actually have a limit on the writes, but it’s so far out there it doesn’t matter. But I wonder if in the case of putting one in a TiVo it might…

  So running a drive for a week should be fine. I think my raids go to sleep with the computer.
• 

  Walter Soyka

  October 22, 2015 at 12:15 pm

  [Bret Williams] “SSDs actually have a limit on the writes, but it’s so far out there it doesn’t matter. But I wonder if in the case of putting one in a TiVo it might…”

  The final results from the SSD endurance test are in:
  https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Jason Jenkins

  October 23, 2015 at 12:59 am

  [Walter Soyka] “The final results from the SSD endurance test are in:
  https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-...”

  That’s great, except sometimes they just suddenly and completely die with no warning.

  Jason Jenkins
  Flowmotion Media
  Video production… with style!

  Check out my Mormon.org profile.

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