(This isn't really port-i386 related anymore ...)

>Newer models have sense pages that contain both the number of spinups to
>data and the estimated maximum number of spinups.  That way you are
>supposed to be able to detect an aging disk and leave it alone.  

I'm curious ... does anyone know what are some typical "maximum spinups"
numbers?

>But realistically, if you really want to do power management on any sort
>of disk drive you should have backups/mirroring and be prepared to replace
>it after a while.

I'm wondering if anyone has any hard data on this.  I hear a lot of
conjecture, but nothing definitive.  I haven't experienced any problems
yet on my laptop, but I fully realize this is only one datapoint.

--Ken