100% disk usage on HDD for a long time, can it cause damage?

[Amir93]

Hi guys, I have some installation process for an application that wanna do on my PC, but that process will take a long time, like 2 hours in average.

My problem is that process will create a heavy load on my HDD, make it reach to 100% disk usage for a long time, maybe during all the required time as i mentioned above.

 

To be honest, the operation will be done at an HDD, and i have already 2 HDDs installed, so the 100% disk usage will be on one of them, average for both will be around 50% only (showed in task manager).

 

So my question: can this process cause damage to my HDD? especially it will take a long time to do?

 

My specs:
Core i5 8400.
RAM 16GB (2x8GB) running at 2133 Mhz.
HDD: WD Blue 1TB 7200 RPM (2 HDDs).

 

Thanks in advance.

[Electronics Wizardy]

It won't hurt the hdd, there make to work at full long for a long time. DOnt' worry about it.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Amir93 said:

 

To be honest, the operation will be done at an HDD, and i have already 2 HDDs installed, so the 100% disk usage will be on one of them, average for both will be around 50% only (showed in task manager).

 

 

Only if it's SSD, and then, only if the capacity is run out of the last 25% of the drive. With a SSD, the emptier it is over time, the longer it lasts, as the wear leveling is spread over more blocks on the drive. 

 

On a mechanical drive, this isn't the case, or at least isn't the case as long as the drive remains powered on. What causes PHYSICAL damage to mechanical drives is physical movement to the drive while it's on. This is why a lot of portable 2.5" hard drives are not really worth using, because they're typically not shock-mounted inside the external drive chassis. When a hard drive is mounted properly in a desktop, the desktop itself is often what absorbs any small shocks to the drive.

 

If drives were incredibly incapable of surviving physical shocks, they wouldn't last through small earthquakes, let alone large ones.

 

Now, I'd still suggest freeing up 25% of the drive, regardless if it's a SSD or a HDD unless the drive is only going to be used as off-line storage. This is because the drive defragmentation tools require enough space to move the largest files on the drive, which can be up to 4x the size of the system memory if the page file has managed to grow that far and the hibernate file if one is used. You should never have less physical space on the drive than you do system ram, otherwise there is no place for a memory dump to go during a BSOD.

 

 

[Amir93]

Thank you so much guys for help, all comments are really so appreciated.