On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:15:57 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

"Jules Richardson" wrote in message
...

I had/have a Seagate (250GB) one. Niggles included the fact that it
used a bulky wall-wart rather than integrated PSU (and "kettle lead"),
the fact that it was tall and thin (so could be knocked over easily),
and the fact that it'd automatically spin down after x minutes of
inactivity (increasing potential for failure - drives generally don't
like lots of stop-start cycles)

Laptop drives are designed for thousands of stop start cycles at the
expensive of not being as reliable as desktop drives when left running.

I suspect they're not "designed" as such - it's merely a by-product of
having less rotating mass, and hence less stress on the spindle motor...