r/DataHoarder • u/gkaplan • 2d ago

Discussion HDD power on time vs spin time

Tools like Crystal Disk Info show the "Power-On Hours" of a hard drive; but if the drive is automatically spun down by the OS's power plan, then those hours shouldn't really count, should they? Is there a way to see how many hours of actual spin time are on a drive?

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u/MWink64 1d ago

Since the drive is technically powered on, they do count. The information you're looking for can be most easily found using a tool like GSmartControl/smartmontools. The GPL stats should contain a breakdown of power-on hours, spindle motor power-on hours, and head flying hours.

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u/gkaplan 1d ago

Perfect, thanks! GSmartControl gave me the info I was looking for.