Can excessive hard disk usage degrade hard drives?

Question

Can excessive hard disk usage degrade hard drives?

Background: Some code I have reads a particular file more often than it needs to. Reducing the frequency of it reading the file isn't justified by speed concerns, but if it does long-term damage to the hard drive it runs on (it only runs on one computer), then changing it would be justified.

Answer 1

Can it? Yes. Will it? It really depends, but unless you're writing a defragmenter that runs 24/7, it's likely that (1) the system will cache a lot of the disk accesses, and (2) your consumer's computer will be replaced before the hard drive ever fails. In either case, though, if you don't have to access the disk, then obviously just don't. :)