External hard drive (Page 3): NP....thats the one i use.....

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

JCam wrote:

Frank, Thanks for the info. I'll look up Aoemi later this afternoon.

Jim

NP....thats the one i use.....

2666loco

I have one also and unplug it when not in use. It doesn't take long to plug in and back up your files. I notice mine gets warm when left plugged in.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Cheese wrote:

In a recent post someone mentioned that in order to save wear-and-tear on an external hard drive, the drive should be turned off when not in use. I use the external drive to do an automatic backup at 2am every day which only takes about 10 minutes. Since the drive remains idle for more than 23 hours per day, should it be switched off (by unplugging the USB connection) when not in use? How many of you unplug external hard drives when not in use?

Turned off when not in use. bwa

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Electronics life is based on a bathtub curve. Time is on the x-axis. The more time something is on just pushes it closer to the End of Life point (x hours).

Edited: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

marty wild Loc: England

Cheese wrote:

In a recent post someone mentioned that in order to save wear-and-tear on an external hard drive, the drive should be turned off when not in use. I use the external drive to do an automatic backup at 2am every day which only takes about 10 minutes. Since the drive remains idle for more than 23 hours per day, should it be switched off (by unplugging the USB connection) when not in use? How many of you unplug external hard drives when not in use?

I have two external drives and switch them on when I backing up. Back ups are important but not that important to me I would consider raid or set up small home-sever

was_a_guru

Amazon has a number of 1TB SSDs from WD, Crucial, SanDisk, Samsung. ranging from $108 to $150. They are internal SSDs. When ordering one of those also buy a Sabrent 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool-free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized For SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP) for $8.99. It takes less than couple of minutes to install the SSD in the enclosure and you have a 1TB External SSD for well under $200.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

marty wild wrote:

I have two external drives and switch them on when I backing up. Back ups are important but not that important to me I would consider raid or set up small home-sever

You do dismount (eject) them before switching, correct?

MechEng Loc: The Mitten

Cheese wrote:

In a recent post someone mentioned that in order to save wear-and-tear on an external hard drive, the drive should be turned off when not in use. I use the external drive to do an automatic backup at 2am every day which only takes about 10 minutes. Since the drive remains idle for more than 23 hours per day, should it be switched off (by unplugging the USB connection) when not in use? How many of you unplug external hard drives when not in use?

I am not a computer geek but I do have a WD my book (750 MB) from WAY back and it is still working just like new. I only plug it in and power it up about once per year and it has always worked. I am not advocating a once per year backup but that is my experience and I haven't lost any data yet (where is that piece of wood). I am prepped to get a 4 TB HD as a back up to the back up just in case though.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

MechEng wrote:

I am not a computer geek but I do have a WD my book (750 MB) from WAY back and it is still working just like new. I only plug it in and power it up about once per year and it has always worked. I am not advocating a once per year backup but that is my experience and I haven't lost any data yet (where is that piece of wood). I am prepped to get a 4 TB HD as a back up to the back up just in case though.

My one WD Passport Ultra only gets used when we go to Acadia each year, with the laptop.
My other Passport was used for the desktop backup, usually monthly or when I know there have been a lot of file additions/changes. I recently received a 1Tb Barracuda 3.5" internal drive, which I wiped and have in an external dual drive dock for backups. I seem to have plenty of backup drives now. I can get three or four backup sets on a 1Tb drive. (Plus I have two old 500Gb Barracudas sitting in a cabinet that I can't seem to throw out.)

marty wild Loc: England

Longshadow wrote:

You do dismount (eject) them before switching, correct?

I don’t take the cable out or disconnect through the software option. My computer will not start if the hard drives are left on. My motherboard can boot from USB So it’s something to do with that. Tried looking at the bios and switching off that option it doesn’t work. Anyway that’s your query, so I turn my computer on and back up when necessary. When I have finished switch the computer off then the harddrives off with the little switch on the external hard-drives in that order. If I forget the computer will not boot until I turn them off . You can turn USB on any time when your computer has booted But should unassociat properly to avoid data loss. Hope that helps

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

marty wild wrote:

I don’t take the cable out or disconnect through t... (show quote)

Yes, thanks.

D-Train Loc: Bend, Oregon

ricardo7 wrote:

" You can get an external 1TB SSD for well under $200, worth every penny IMHO."

Can you please tell us where this can be found for well under $200.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=1TB+External+SSD&i=electronics&ref=nb_sb_noss

D-Train Loc: Bend, Oregon

chrissybabe wrote:

The issue of leaving something running or to power it off is a contentious one. You will find many for and many against. I am not going to venture an answer here but I can say that more things die in the act of turning on or off than while running (obviously difficult to say what might happen when turned off for long periods).

I have always realized that there are 2 schools of thought to the "should I turn it off or leave it on" debate. This goes for not just hard drives but computers in general. The first school of thought is that if you leave a computer turned on all the time it will develop more "wear and tear" and will wear out faster.

The other school of thought (and the one I have always followed) comes from the knowledge that as electronics are turned on and off, they get hot and cold and hot and cold, which causes the components to constantly expand and contract, which, IMHO, causes more wear and tear than the first school of thought. So no, I NEVER turn my computers off, they go to sleep of course when not being used, but they are always turned on unless I am moving them (desktop computers, not laptops). This has always worked well for me. YRMV.

D-Train Loc: Bend, Oregon

Twinbro wrote:

I use two external drives so I have a double backup. Plus all on a thumb drive and stored in my bank box and I change/update it monthly. It doesn't matter how many HDs you have, it they are connected to the PC, a fire or theft and all your photos are gone.

I agree, having been a PC user for 30 years, I can't count the number of times I have lost data. So now I'm paranoid and every bit of data that I have that I truly care about I have at least 2 backups of it. And as disk space has gotten cheaper and cheaper over the years this has just made it even easier for me to justify. Heck, just this morning I was looking at external drives on Amazon and they have an 8TB drive for only $139. That's astonishing. I spent way more than that for a 20MB (yes, Megabytes) hard drive back in 1990. Talk about cheap storage!

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

D-Train wrote:

I agree, having been a PC user for 30 years, I can... (show quote)

I’m with you on those backups and DR copies, but that “cheap” 8TB/$139 storage is worth just what you pay for it - keep up with those backups, or buy two and mirror them (RAID 1).