External HD leave on or off?

KIPAX

KIPAX

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KIPAX Lancashire UK
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I ahve two maxtor external HDs and one being full and copied over to the second larger one... so its a backup i dont use but still have plugged in .. I like to see its there and OK

Is it better to turn off and put in storage or better to keep plugged in or makes no different?

I know next to nowt on the subject and the worry is the same as with DVDs and used to be with floppys.. that if i unplug and store.. when i come to plug it in again .. maybe a year or two down the line.. that it doesnt work and nothing shows... seeing it all OK everyday is assuring ..

But would it last longer unplugged or...hmm I dunno :)
 
I would say it makes no difference

If a drive is going to fail it will fail whether plugged in weekly/monthly or yearly
 
I don't know for definite but I bought a Lacie 300GB external HDD in January 2005 and it's still in tip top shape.
I only switch it on when I'm backing up though, whether this has anything to do with the prolonged life expectancy I can't say for certain but at least it saves electricity too :D
 
Repeatedly turning on and off a device with moving parts will inevitably cause wear and tear...but depending how often it's done will obviously effect the lifetime of the item. I've had hard drives that have lasted a couple of years, and then I've got one that I've had almost 10 and still works!
 
I've always been lead to believe that computers are best left on all the time and the most stress is caused at startup. As such, I rarely turn any of my Mac's off, either at work or home.

I do have an external HD (one of those passport things) though, which is USB powered and I only plug that in once a week to backup.
 
I had a maxtor with all my photos on.... it failed :( but it was just the enclosure(sp) :) so i took the HDD out and everything was ok. When my PC turns off or goes on standby the hard disks turn themselves off
 
neil_g said:
itll spin up on power on, itll spin up when your system boots and shuts down, itll spin up when you go anything that requires a directory listing such as my computer, save as dialogues etc etc.
Click to expand...

Fair point :bonk:

Does that mean me bad for leaving my laptop on 24hrs :|

At least my external HDD is quiet most of the time :bang:
 
68lbs said:
I've always been lead to believe that computers are best left on all the time and the most stress is caused at startup. As such, I rarely turn any of my Mac's off, either at work or home.

I do have an external HD (one of those passport things) though, which is USB powered and I only plug that in once a week to backup.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm not so bad after all ;)
 
I rarely ever turn my desktop computer off and the external hd's "seem" be dormant.. i think I will leave it on then.. without anyone shouting turn it off if not using then its probably ok to leave on and nice to know all the time its still there and working:)

Cheers :)
 
when a HDD is not in use, the heads of the drive should park and the drive will stop spinning. I leave mine on for the majoirty of the time. My mate has drives which have been left on for the last 5 years, and he hasnt had any problems with them
 
If its backup only then its much better off being away from your main pc, ideally in a different building. Keeping it next to your pc your only covering hardware failure of your main drive. It wont help with theft, flood or fire.

I have had discs running non stop on servers for years, only for them to fail after a shutdown.
 
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