I am using a WD AV series drive in my PVR, and wondering what is the best usage for drive longevity. I don’t believe physical HDs have wear leveling feature like SSDs do, so which use case would increase drive life:
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Record, watch, and delete shows quickly, thereby keeping the drive mostly empty. So each recording is written to the same physical sectors of the drive over and over again, while the majority of other sectors are rarely touched.
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Record, watch but do not delete shows right away. Wait for the HD to fill up, and then delete shows in batches. This would force the HD to use its entire surface. ie. manual drive leveling.
