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Power fopr external hard drive enclosure
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Oct 19, 2020 13:26:27   #
grichie5
 
Which is the better practice for an external hard drive in an external enclosure; to turn off the power to it at night when the computer is not in use and shut down or to leave the enclosure powered powered on 24 hours a day. The case is Aluminum, not fanned cooled, but heat doesn't seem to be an issue.

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Oct 19, 2020 13:38:32   #
fredpnm Loc: Corrales, NM
 
Consider a master power strip... one that turns power off to all other items plugged into the power strip - monitors, external drives and the like - when it detects you've turned off the PC.

Otherwise I'd suggest you turn off external drives once done for the day.

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Oct 19, 2020 15:53:03   #
CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska
 
grichie5 wrote:
Which is the better practice for an external hard drive in an external enclosure; to turn off the power to it at night when the computer is not in use and shut down or to leave the enclosure powered powered on 24 hours a day. The case is Aluminum, not fanned cooled, but heat doesn't seem to be an issue.


You should be able to manage this in your preferences control panel. I can tell my imac to put the drives to sleep what not in use for a specified period of time. When this happens I can hear them wind down and the one with a fan the fan stops too. When I am working in Lightroom or PS I set them to stay on so I don't have to wait while they wind up, but much of the time I let the computer control this. Windows system has got to let you do this somehow too.
...Cam

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Oct 19, 2020 20:57:36   #
TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC
 
Since a large percentage of HD failures occur on startup after being down for awhile, before I changed to all SSD, I ran mine 24x7.

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Oct 20, 2020 09:23:57   #
jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY
 
I turn my external on only when I'm backing up files or importing something from them. That doesn't happen very often, so why leave them on?

CrystalDiskInfo (free) will show you the temperature of your drives. I had three in an external aluminum case with a small fan, and the temp shot up when one of them was working for a while. I removed the rear fan and installed two fans on the top. Now it never overheats.

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Oct 20, 2020 09:49:00   #
NCMtnMan Loc: N. Fork New River, Ashe Co., NC
 
Years ago the recommended action was to leave drives running once they were up. The drive technology has changed a lot and there isn't any real reason for that anymore. The drives retract and lock the heads so quickly now that it isn't a problem. The best thing you can do for your computer and these drives is to have them on a UPS to keep power fluctuations at a minimum. Lousy power and heat will do more harm to your equipment than anything else.

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Oct 20, 2020 11:28:04   #
photoman43
 
I turn on my external hard drives only after my windows 10 desktop has booted up. After boot, I turn on the power switch on my power strip for that specific drive. (My power strip has a separate switch for each opening.) I do not leave my desktop powered on when not in use.

After image processing, I back up to my external drives. Then I go to the bottom toolbar and select the drive icon and remove each external drive. When "Safe to remove" appears I turn off the power to that drive. I do this for each drive set to On. I remove it by turning the drive power switch to off.

Then I turn off the desktop.

See attached picture of power strip and external drives. Two are in Rosewill cases with fans, one is a StarTech aluminum case, and one is a regular external drive.

This might be too anal for some, but I have found that it helps me prevent loss of data.



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Oct 20, 2020 11:53:13   #
TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC
 
Btw, just a quick note on a related subject. If you’re using SSDs in an external, you DO want to leave them powered up or power them up regularly. There have been cases of data loss from leaving some SSDs unpowered for periods of time.

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Oct 20, 2020 13:18:28   #
PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA
 
I have an HP SimpleSave hard drive attached to my PC. I keep both running 24/7.

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Oct 20, 2020 16:19:35   #
Country Boy Loc: Beckley, WV
 
I only power my external drives on when I plan to use them but after reading all the previous comments I would guess it does not matter. Unless the manufacturer advises otherwise I think you can do what fits your business process best.

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Oct 20, 2020 16:31:33   #
CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska
 
Country Boy wrote:
I only power my external drives on when I plan to use them but after reading all the previous comments I would guess it does not matter. Unless the manufacturer advises otherwise I think you can do what fits your business process best.


Agree. From all the posts both ways, it seems that it just doesn't make any difference.
...Cam

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Oct 20, 2020 19:07:06   #
Mikerfd
 
My external drives spin down when the computer sleeps or turns off. Put your ear to the drive case or something solid between your ear and drive case and listen to the drive. Also you can see if your external drive takes a longer time to respond if you haven't accessed it for a long while. I'm running W10 OS.

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Oct 20, 2020 23:28:22   #
11bravo
 
photoman43 wrote:
Then I go to the bottom toolbar and select the drive icon and remove each external drive. When "Safe to remove" appears I turn off the power to that drive. I do this for each drive set to On. I remove it by turning the drive power switch to off.

Then I turn off the desktop.

See attached picture of power strip and external drives. Two are in Rosewill cases with fans, one is a StarTech aluminum case, and one is a regular external drive.

This might be too anal for some, but I have found that it helps me prevent loss of data.
Then I go to the bottom toolbar and select the dri... (show quote)
99.9% of the time, powering off without dismounting will cause no trouble. It's that 0.1%... I agree with you - I always use the USB Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media in the lower right task bar before powering off a drive. Makes sure the computer is done with it and has updated the MFT (Master File Table). Recovering an MFT can be done but takes TIME...

I do like those Rosewill cases with fans (just provisioned a WD 4TB Red+, about 18 hours of continuous access, and it never got above 100 degrees). Just a comment: is there plenty of room on the intake? Maybe it's the perspective or you've arranged for the photo, but some look pretty tight. I too have one of those multiple power strips, very convenient for occasionally used externals. Given I keep my computers on most of the time, only turning off to remove a full HDD, a couple of my external drives are always on.

I'd say the most important thing is to do the "software" remove, or do a software shutdown of the computer first, THEN turn off the external HDDs (ever notice those drive access flashes when you shutdown... that's the MFT being updated).

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Oct 21, 2020 06:31:35   #
Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)
 
TriX wrote:
Since a large percentage of HD failures occur on startup after being down for awhile, before I changed to all SSD, I ran mine 24x7.


Same here.

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Oct 21, 2020 10:52:41   #
photoman43
 
Regarding the rosewill cases, I am not sure what you mean by plenty of room on the intake. I placed them close together just for the photo. Installing the enterprise hard drive was easy. There was about one half inch of free space between the connectors inside the case. The outside has a very nice on off switch too. Fan is quiet. And there is an easy to see blue light telling you the drive is on. One case has a 14TB drive. The other a 12 TB drive. There is no real limit on TB capacity as long as the drive is a 3.5 inch drive. If you plan to fill up the power strip you may need liberator plugs as those transformers can take up more than one plug slot. I got the power strip at an on line store, Cyberguys. They sell liberator plugs too.

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