On Mon, 29 Dec 2014 00:45:38 -0500, clare wrote:

My experience has been running 24/7 can often last longer than being
shut down and restarted as the bearings don't flatspot and stick on
restart.

You took the words right out of my mouth :-).

I regularly remove drives from my old computers before I junk them. It's
surprising how many people sell fairly new computers cheap. They take
out the drives to protect their data and assume nobody wants a computer
with no drives. I bought my last one for $10 and stuffed two of my old
drives in it.

But the industry has reached the point where IDE drives no longer work.
SO I'll have to junk my collection and start anew.