Yearly, October typically.

Depends on how frequently you’re accessing the data. If it’s infrequently used, then spin up/down can be beneficial. But yes, you raise a good point. Thank you. :)

You should look at power settings. HDDs can power down when not being read from or written to. It extends the time you wait when you need the data on them but can save on their lifetime / electric / heat.

Can you provide sources from this? I’m genuinely curious, the highest I’ve heard was $80,000 and it was a campus department with endowment funding.

Also, I wouldn’t count overtime as part of the salary. Having to work that much is going to put extra stress on you, make you irritable, wear you down, etc. and result in turnover.