Running External Drive 24/7

S

Sovereign

2[H]4U
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Mar 21, 2005
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Is it okay to leave an external drive powered on all the time? I'm not writing to/reading from it all the time; actually now that I've put what I wanted to on it (movies and anime) I'm not going to be reading to/writing from it frequently at all. Nevertheless, I don't want to kill it. The drive sits on top of my Thermaltake Armor case in a room that is almost always air conditioned (dorms FTW, just this once).
 
I assume we are talking about a USB, firewire or eSata drive?


Does it spin down when not in use?

Did you buy a drive and put in an enclosure or buy a retail one?



Only reason I ask is because I have had good experience with drives that spin down after set period of time of inactivity. Most of the bare drive enclosures that you can buy and provide your own drive in do NOT have this feature and spin the drive so long as its powered on. I have personally had drives die in enclosures that keep the drive spinning 24/7 like this when I left them plugged in for weeks on end. Most of them have inadequate cooling for todays hot running drives for being powered on 24/7.



If the drive spins down when not in use, I don't see the harm. If it doesn't, then I would suggest powering it off when not in use.
 
USB. It's a Cavalry 1TB dual drive (500GB x2 JBOD). It is not spinning down; I can feel it vibrating. Is there a way to get Windows to tell the drive to spin down?
 
My Seagate FreeAgent 500GB external hdd shuts down as the computer shuts down.
After about 20 minutes, the drive will power on for some reason, but it is idle and spinning very slow.
 
If it's kept cool, then there should be no harm in running it 24/7; no more so than having it as an internal drive anyway. Of course, that's assuming that you avoid bumping it and the power supply isn't shoddy.
 
Is there a way to get Windows to tell the drive to spin down?
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Not that I'm aware of.


This is the drive I have. Opinions?
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Unfortunately, SMART data isn't avaliable with USB connections.

As long as the enclosure's got a fan, I'm voting it will be not be significantly detrimental to your drives.

Maybe someone else has experience with that specific case, but I'd say you're good to go! :)
 
I'm pretty sure my Venus DS enclosure spins the drive down when not in use, though I'm not positive right now, the enclosure does get pretty hot when it's been on for days (which happens frequently as I don't bother to remember to shut it down much) and it does have a fan.

I haven't had any issues w/a Seagate 250GB drive that's been sitting inside it for close to 3 years now.
 
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