How to extend the life of HDD?

Question

linux

There is a retro computer. Works as a gateway.
Its filling is old and it seems to me that it can fall apart, although it has 21 days of uptime.
How can you improve its survivability, namely the survivability of disks?
Is it worth stopping drives overnight?
Is it possible to forcibly reduce the speed of disks?
What are the pitfalls?
Performance does not really matter, the load on the computer is minimal.
The computer has debian 7, 2 HDDs in LVM, an old stump 4 percent.

Answer 1

I use loading the gateway from a flash drive, without logging and other garbage .....
it works for a year .... even if the flash drive dies, I'll buy a new one for 400 rubles.
it's better than listening to the groaning of a screw.

Answer 2

When you stop hard, it starts to cool down. It heats up again on startup. This temperature regime has a bad effect on the plates. It's better when the hard one doesn't stop at all.
I don't know about speed.
Does the computer have USB? stick a flash drive in there, and remove the hard ones altogether.
Saving electricity is evident, less noise is evident, more survivability is evident :)

Answer 3

If there is periodic access to the disk, then it is better not to slow it down. Deliver UPS, and forget.
If possible, assemble a "mirror" of two disks. Then even in case of failure, your data will remain.

Answer 4

I usually put the disk in readonly mode and they live longer.

Answer 5

retro PCs have USB - as many people here advise - put (or transfer) your linux to a Flash drive. choose a larger flash drive with a physical size, and less gigabytes, it is advisable to find an older one. on habré there was a review of the gateway on a flash drive a couple of months ago.
you can try to make a mirror (btrfs || lvm || mdadm) from flash drives * (I plan to do this myself)
if there is no usb, or it doesn’t work out adequately, then you should try to find another screw working) and put it in the second one, make a mirror (mdadm) - it will be calmer (although the first screw just failed in raid 1, I was busy and put it off, and the second failed after a week - now I’m switching to flash drives).
here in the topic habrahabr.ru/post/214803
still as an option in ide, you can also stick a compact flash.
answering a question in the topic: stable regular power supply, without interruptions, stable temperature around 30-35 degrees (hddtemp will show), preferred linear reading, first writing to memory, and then dumping a large section on the screw.

Answer 6

The gateway can be made without a disk at all from a flash drive or even a floppy disk.
There are even assemblies on one floppy disk with a bunch of network stuff.
And it will work forever