Best 2 TB Hard Disk ?

[mark1234]

This is drifting OT, but what happens when I pause the playback of a previously recorded program? Before I built the HTPC one of my thoughts was that since the video is paused perhaps the HDD does not have to spin & read because the data can just be repeatedly read out of RAM. IOW no HHD activity going on.

But I do see my HDD LED still flicker once in a while which means it's still at work. This means the head is still reading data off the platter. I realize the head floats on a thin layer of air & supposedly never touches the platter. But since HDDs do fail, is there any reason for concern if left in the pause mode for any length of time?

You're thinking that this works in the same way as an old VCR where the heads would constantly read the tape when paused. With Media Centre when you pause, the current frame image will be held in memory and there is no need for any disk access to maintain that image. However, this being a Windows PC you have no real idea what activity is really going on on that drive, so yes it will do things sometimes. Don't worry about it.

[barnabas1969]

This is drifting OT, but what happens when I pause the playback of a previously recorded program? Before I built the HTPC one of my thoughts was that since the video is paused perhaps the HDD does not have to spin & read because the data can just be repeatedly read out of RAM. IOW no HHD activity going on.

But I do see my HDD LED still flicker once in a while which means it's still at work. This means the head is still reading data off the platter. I realize the head floats on a thin layer of air & supposedly never touches the platter. But since HDDs do fail, is there any reason for concern if left in the pause mode for any length of time?

You're thinking that this works in the same way as an old VCR where the heads would constantly read the tape when paused. With Media Centre when you pause, the current frame image will be held in memory and there is no need for any disk access to maintain that image. However, this being a Windows PC you have no real idea what activity is really going on on that drive, so yes it will do things sometimes. Don't worry about it.

What Mark said is partially correct. However, Media Center continuously buffers Live TV. So, when you pause Live TV, it is still receiving new data from the tuner, and writing this to disk so you can view it after you press PLAY. This causes the drive to be in continuous use any time you are watching or recording TV.

That said, you really don't need to worry about it. As Mark said, the drives will last a long time. If they do fail in a short period of time, they would have failed soon regardless of how you were using them.

[mark1234]

However, Media Center continuously buffers Live TV. So, when you pause Live TV, it is still receiving new data from the tuner, and writing this to disk so you can view it after you press PLAY. This causes the drive to be in continuous use any time you are watching or recording TV.

OK, yeah I'll give you that. But who watches live TV anymore???

[barnabas1969]

However, Media Center continuously buffers Live TV. So, when you pause Live TV, it is still receiving new data from the tuner, and writing this to disk so you can view it after you press PLAY. This causes the drive to be in continuous use any time you are watching or recording TV.

OK, yeah I'll give you that. But who watches live TV anymore???

True. I wasn't thinking about pausing a pre-recorded show. In the case of a pre-recorded show, it does not need to read the disk to continue to display the paused image. That image is simply being repeated by your video adapter.

I'll add a further comment about Mike's question regarding the disk LED occasionally blinking. The simple answer: It's Windows. It will occasionally hit the HDD, even when you're not watching anything.

[Mike88]

Thank you barnabus1969 & mark1234 for all the information.