How bad is it to move spinning HDD, Hard Drive, while head is moving?

[Guest ShortyCut]

Hello everyone!

 

A bit new to posting on the forum :3

 

I just bought a new external desktop HDD (WD Elements Desktop - 2TB) and I am currently running a full format of it, which does take it fair time. Some might say that a full format is unnecessary, and that a quick format would have been OK, but I get paranoid easily so I decided to do it anyway.

 

EDIT: I know it is bad, and that it is really, really bad if you are not very careful, but what if you try to be very gentle moving it?  It is a desktop external HDD, but it feels like they should have added some sort of protection at least since it is an external drive, and not an internal one, hence why I dared to move it at all.

 

Anyway, to my question. How bad is it really to move a HDD while it is working (i.e while the head is moving)? After about 8 hours of formatting, and with about 8 hours left, I unfortunately had to move the HDD, and so I did. I did my best to keep it in the same orientation as I could and tried only to move it upwards and sideways so that I wouldn't change the axis on which the platters were/are spinning. As I said earlier I very easily get paranoid and I'm now semi-worried the that I possibly might have caused  some bad sectors on the disc. I tried to do some searching on the big and mighty Google regarding this, but could only find answer like "It is bad to move hard drive while it is on" and "don't move the hard drive" (Which I already know ofc). What I want to know is HOW bad it is (if you should really be that worried at all) if you try to move the drive with as great care as you can? How can the lifespan be affected?

 

Thanks to everyone or anyone that comes with a reply!

[alpenwasser]

- snip -

In my experience, it depends quite a bit on the HDD. I tried it out with a

normal Samsung desktop drive a while ago because I was curious and didn't need

the drive anymore. I just had it running on my table, then moved it very

gently. It died rather quickly (dropped out of the OS and couldn't be

remounted anymore).

For other drives it might be fine, especially if it has acceleration sensors

built in and can park its heads when it's detecting movement of the enclosure

(no idea if this is the case for your drive). Laptop drives usually fall into

this category, for example.

Also, the Samsung drive was from ~2008, so things might be different just

because of new technology today.

In the end, if you want to be sure, grab a disk diagnostics software

(Crystaldiskmark, or it might be that WD make their own tool for it) and run a

health check on the drive, that's the best way to ease your mind (or to

find out for sure if you need to replace the drive).

[vlkn´]

it´s really bad to move a desktop hdd while working.

 

you can spin a bike wheel in your hand and move it while it spins and you know what I mean if you do it.

it´s just not healthy for the hdd

[Guest ShortyCut]

Woah!

That didn't take long to get some good replies! Thank you!

 

Hmm.. ok. I will try some of those diagnostics once it is done formatting  (and Windows own error-checker).
 

[Guest ShortyCut]

I have one of those NSD powerballs / gyroballs (search for NSD powerball on google), so I know how strong the force can be when spinning a object even at somewhat low RPM's

[Guest]

If its an external drive then they are designed to have more protection but its still not best practice to do so in the future.

[Ceatra]

Hey im moving my laptop all the times, with the HDD spinning so I think its the same.

[Tedster]

I have one of those NSD powerballs / gyroballs (search for NSD powerball on google), so I know how strong the force can be when spinning a object even at somewhat low RPM's

Powerballs are great wrist exercisers. I need to get back to using mine.

[Guest ShortyCut]

Currently running a "EXTENDED TEST" with the "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows"-software from WD to scan for bad sectors and and afterwards I will take a look with CrystalDiskInfo to see how it is doing. The extended test will take about 18 hours for this 2 TB drive to finish, so will come back tomorrow with the results.

[Guest ShortyCut]

The drive seems to be more than fine (phew) As I mentioned at the top, I was very very careful whilst moving it and tried not to change the orientation it had after lifting it. Won't be moving it while it is working again though.