[Mugge]

I've bought an EyeTV Diversity for my new iMac and so far it's been smooth sailing. But It has this buffer which, while very handy for putting TV on pause and rewinding, does keep the HD constantly busy at any time I've got EyeTV running. I have also noticed from Activity Monitor that it writes in bursts, probably due to caching in RAM.

So does this added activity pose any risk of my iMacs HD dying before it's time?

I am of course backing up, but changing HD in these iMacs isn't exactly trivial.

I also have an old unused 100 GB back-up drive. Would it make any sense using this for EyeTV purposes?

Thanks in advance.

[Dorian Gray]

Don't be silly, Mugge. What do you think hard drives do in datacentres?

Ignoring early failures, etc., hard disk drives seem to fail at about the same rate whether they're used heavily or not, according to that big-ass Google study. As long as temps are kept within the safe limits of the drive, I wouldn't care about using it practically nonstop. Highish temps are fine as long as they're below the manufacturer's limit, as also shown in that Google study.

Originally Posted by Mugge I also have an old unused 100 GB back-up drive. Would it make any sense using this for EyeTV purposes?

I wouldn't bother, even if you can configure the software to use an external hard drive for temp files. Your hard drive will fail sooner or later, whether you use it heavily or not, and there's not much you can do about it. Use the 100 GB drive for a second backup of important files.

[Mugge]

All right, silly me then. I'll be happy to take your word for it.

[Dorian Gray]

Good man.