>> In theory, until the disks are spinning at full speed, you don't get 
>> that "cushion of air" for the heads to "fly" on, which should result 
>> in wear. Of course, no doubt manufacturers know all about this and 
>> have come up with ways to at least reduce the problem...
> 
> There's probably just a reserved portion of the platter that is used for 
> spin-up/down operations.

I'm 98% certain this is the case. However, that still means that this 
part of the disk wears down, and also that the heads themselves wear down.

> The only tricky bit is to get the head over to that portion when the
> power is suddenly cut.

This is probably fairly trivial. In the old days you used to have to run 
the "park" command. But today... well, have you ever noticed that 
"click" noise when you unplug the power? I imagine that's the magnet in 
the voice coils parking the heads. ;-)

In fact, I've disassembled a HD and observed that the arm strongly 
resists any attempt to remove it from the home position. It keeps 
wanting to click back into place, with the heads on the outer edge of 
the platters.

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