Will not enough RAM cause a hard disk failure?

I have the HP nx6115 for 11 1/4 months now. And there's something that had always been bugging me ever since i made that purchase last April. Before i go in depth, here are the specs

Processor : AMD Turion64 ML-32 1.8Ghz
HDD: 60GB Seagate (original/aftet 1st service),60GB unknown brand (after 2nd servicing)
RAM : 512MB
Graphics : 128MB shared from main system memory ; ATi Xpress 200M.

In theory, i have 384MB (or 480MB when 32MB graphics are shared). Usually i use the 128MB option because i do occasional gaming at the lowest settings. I knew that it might not have enough ram, but because i was a no.0b that time, i thought 384MB was enough. (and the friend also said it was enough too....wt)

I believe that the virtual memory has to work very hard (i.e read and write frequently together with datas), as tnere is only 384MB physical ram. I had sent in that notebook in twice during its term with me, all because of of the hard disk failing/about to fail. Recently earlier this month, i had sent it for the 2nd servicing, and speedfan is now indicating 13 reallocated sectors and bla bla bla (which i know it's a sign of sooner-or-later impending failure.

So is virtual memory/ not enough system memory the cause of the hard disk failure/failing? i have no clue and this is the question that has been bugging me....for a year. Any idea why?

ps : And no i don't use the nx6115 in any extreme environments.

 

My first reaction is to say no, but you have prepared a rational argument of why the argument could be yes. HDDs are normally rated as 100,000hrs MTBF (mean time between failure) which is a lot of running time. You are correct to assert that the fairly small physical memory means that the HDD will have a lot to do and have a harder life than most notebook HDDs get, but this shouldn't directly cause premature death. An indirect effect of the HDD being busy is that it might be getting hot. The normal running temperature of notebook HDDs varies considerably according to both the notebook chassis design and the HDD itself. You can monitor the temperature using MobileMeter. The worst offender in my recent experience was the Asus W3 where heavy HDD usage could get the HDD temperature up to the maximum rated operating temperature of 60C although I once had a Dell Inspiron 8000 in which the HDD was regularly over 60C. The design meant that the HDD was just above the CPU.

You can read the HDD's life history using software which interrogate's the HDD SMART data. Two such packages are SiSoftware Sandra and Active Smart. Sometimes the reported values tool like garbage but the reported maximum temperature is usually correct.

Device Manager will give you the HDD model number and then use Google to find the manufacturer.

John

PS: Adding a 1GB RAM module would transform the performance as well as giving the HDD an easier life.

 

maybe it will shorten the lifespan of the HD since low memory will generally means your HD will most often work overtime or double...

but m not sure if this would be true in all cases since my old presario notebook (using it for more than 3 yrs now 24/7) only has 512 memory but my HD has yet to fail me...

 

Mt first reaction would be no as well. We have a second ancient desktop that has a pitiful 256mb ram with a 40gb HD. Runs XP fine and 5 years later it still works. Use it as a glorified storage solution now

 

Nope, a harddrive can take an insane amount of reads/write before failing. If your harddrive fails, it's because of a problem with the harddrive.

The amount of extra accesses caused by page faults is not going to make a difference.

 

I am positive that it will fail sooner (lets say after 80.000 instead 100.000 hours).
Would that make a difference to you? I don't expect you will be using the same laptop after that time!

 

a more accurate figure would be after 99.998 hours instead of 100.000. This amount of reads is *not* going to cause a 20% decrease in the drive's lifetime. Unless you have some *really* good evidence backing that claim up, you're just spreading ignorance, which is generally a bad idea.

 

What may be happening is a mis-voltage or some other error on the hard drive or supplying the hard drive, possibly a motherboard error. I've had things like that happen with an overclocked PCI bus. But that's neither here nor there, I agree with Jalf: lack of memory won't cause a hard drive failure. They're made to be written to and read from.

 

Although I am sure you can't provide either any solid evidence supporting your claim, the main point which you did not understand is that when we are talking about a "life expectancy" of 100k even 50% of that translates to 5 years (not to mention 20% or anything else).
My point is that you should not care.

 

Hard drives can fail one of two ways: electrically or mechanically. Just as the mechanical parts in a machine or a car can wear out due to normal use, so can the parts in the hard drive. The part in question is the mechanical arm inside the hard drive which moves twin sets of magnetic heads over the spindle of dual layer magnetized platters inside the HDD case in order to read and write information. If you move that arm "x" number of times on one hundred hard drives and "x/4" number of times on another hundred hard drives over a two year period, chances are the first hundred hard drives will show a lower MTBF than the second batch. Added to the fact that operating temperatures in and around notebook hard drives are generally around 40 degrees celcius or over 100 degrees fahrenheit, the impact of tripling or quadrupling the number of reads and writes will definitely be noticeable. How much so is debatable, but a quick call to WD or Seagate engineering will probably resolve the issue.

 

That's an electrical or heating problem. May be something wrong with the power adapter, or the connection between the hard drive's power source and the motherboard. No, upgrading RAM will not help, in fact I'd try to RMA that laptop.