Virtualisation and HDD health

[tradetime]

Originally Posted by sucilee

I do think the technology of Powershadow will damage your harddisk.

When you first install Powershadow, it will find a free space in your harddisk for the "cache buffer". It maybe will take 1-10 GB space in your harddisk.

when you are in shadow mode, all the disk access will be actually saved into the "cache buffer". when you rebooting, the "cache buffer" will be clean. all the changes will be lost.

that is the theory of Powershadow.

Now, all the disk access will muster in a fixed buffer area. That means the linear accesss to disk will be changed to a point. The "cache buffer" will be used very very frequently.

Damage on your harddisk will be there soon.

Now other products of virtual solution already dropped this technology and move to new way.

But after I tested the PS 2.8, it was still in the old way.

Having come across this post on a Powershadow thread, and not wishing to take it off topic by discussing virtual products in general, I was wondering what the more knowledgeable than myself think about the risks of damage to HD of using various virtual softwares. I realise the poster here is speaking specifically about Powershadow, but does risk of damage exist with these technologies?

[WSFuser]

I dont think it could directly damage your disk, but since it will just cause your disk to be more active, the disk *may* not last as long.

Disks do have a MTTF (mean time to failure) of hundred of thousands hours. I wouldnt be so worried.

[koreanmark]

They announce millions of people using powershadow.

As I know, there are few western people using the powershadow. But Powershadow is a freeware for chinese.

Few western people know chinese and never will know this:
There are about 20,000 search result in google that report the disk or system crash by Powershadow in chinese website.

In some chinese forums, many chinese people complain the company of powershadow use the chinese computers for testing. the free is a bait. then sell it to the western people.

[Peter2150]

This thread is a duplication of this thread in the anti-malware forum.

Therefore I am closing thread is closed.

Pete