is there a Too Long to have a external hard drive hooked up?

[walkingheart645]

hey all.. i was just wondering.. i do a lot of photography, and keep my photo's on an external hard drive, so i keep my ehd hooked up all the time.. will this damage anything, or am i ok with just leaving it hooked up?? thanks in advance.. walkingheart645

[brightspark]

Hey - It's a matter of personal choice really. It won't hurt anything leaving an external hard drive connected all the time. I leave mine permanently connected....no problem.

Cheers.....Jim

[JayCub]

as mentioned by brightspark i too keep my external hard drives on all the time (over three years for two of them)... like anything mechanical it can go wrong so burning files to a DVD may help ease your mind..

[Bearcat]

I agree with Jay. Any mechanical device will eventually wear out, but I wouldn't start using them less because of that. I personally use an eSata HDD boot for backup and storage, as SATA HDD's are faster than USB external drives and makes saving large files much quicker. That said, Jay's idea of saving your data to DVD is also a good option.

[Raymond]

It depends on how often I would use the external hard drive.
If I need to use it all the time, then I would leave it connected, or else just disconnect it.
External hard drives can get pretty hot.

[brightspark]

It depends on how often I would use the external hard drive.
If I need to use it all the time, then I would leave it connected, or else just disconnect it.
External hard drives can get pretty hot.

I disagree with that, external drives which are used purely for storing data will not get hot simply because they are connected; they need to actually be working for that to happen. I don't use my external drive all that often and leave it connected purely for convenience. It does not get at all hot.....not even warm.

When an external hard drive is connected but not actually in use, it is dormant. Even after use the drive will spin down and then maintain a dormant state until next time it is accessed.

[Raymond]

Are you referring to 2.5" or 3.5"?
I have a Maxtor 3.5" 7200RPM hard drive which is fixed to an external enclosure and it needs a dedicated power source.
The enclosure feels pretty hot when leaving the drive turned on but not using it.

[brayden]

No reason why not but I can't comment as I don't have an external HDD. I just have a boatload of USBs.

2x 16GB USB 2.0, 2x 4GB, 2x 1GB.

[hal9000]

I believe some external drives can spin down when they are inactive but most do not. I have a mixture of external drives and none of them do it. The 2.5's spin until they're unplugged and the 3.5's spin unless they're switched off at the back and as a result they all get slightly warm because of that.

If your enclosure spins down or has fans / good ventilation then leaving it going 24/7 is OK but if it gets very warm or hot to touch then I'd think otherwise.

There is a tool for a number of WD drives WD-Spindown-or-Stop-Utility which can spin them down but what drives it works on and Vista / 7 compatibility I don't know.

[brightspark]

I believe some external drives can spin down when they are inactive but most do not

Well I may stand corrected, it wouldn't be the first time I have been proven wrong....and probably won't be the last.

However, there are many 'experts' who would agree with me, Leo Notenboom for one. Here is an excerpt from his article titled "Should I turn off my external hard drive when not in use?"

External hard drives in particular typically "spin down" or turn off after a period of inactivity whether you want them to or not. The next time you access the hard drive it spins up - the cause of the delay you sometimes experience after you haven't used the drive in a while.

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All I know is I own 5 external drives and all spin down when inactive.


Oh BTW; the WD Spindown tool you refer to is not actually to force drives to spin down, it provides a range of options/parameters for greater control over spindown.