External hard drive (Page 2): :sm24: My desktop sleeps most of the time, but if a storm is coming through, I do turn it off, even with the UPS on it.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Country Boy wrote:

I have 3 external drives and I turn them off and disconnect them when not in use. I also shut my PC down when not in use as well. I believe it would lessen the impact of any power surge to have the system off rather than asleep.

My desktop sleeps most of the time, but if a storm is coming through, I do turn it off, even with the UPS on it.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

I have kept my Western Digital MyBook drives and my iMac computers turned on 24-hours a day for over five years without any drive failures. When the system has not been accessed for over 30-minutes it is set to go into sleep mode. I also have a five drive Drobo for archival backup that I only turn on when I am actually updating the data once each day.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

I had a low-end WD drive (8TB) that went to sleep after 3 minutes of inactivity, with no option to change that parameter - it was the only one of the 5 external drives that worked this way. Any disk function on my Mac Mini would not run until the WD drive spun up from sleep (it was most noticeable when I would try to empty the trash, and got the rainbow pinwheel for 10 seconds before I could click on the Empty button.) I drove me nuts, so I finally replaced it with a HGST drive that does not go to sleep.

I do have my computer set to go to sleep after 3 hours of inactivity, but don't know if that turns off the drives, too. In any case I don't much care - they don't cost much to run, and are on a shelf out of the way of most handling so they don't get bumped, so they can just keep spinning. (I do turn things off and unplug 'em if there's a big thunderstorm predicted.)

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

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?

Cheese (

) What program are you using to control the Auto Back Up? I'm one of the Neanderthals still using Win 7 Pro as an OS, and have a Seagate external drive that I only use for photo backups (1.44 GB free out of 1.81 GB total), but it is a royal pain to Drag & Drop the files therefore I don't back up (about a 40min process) as often as I should. I do turn it off, unplug from the computer USB Port when I'm not using it. With this I believe that turns it off as the light of the drive goes off.

Thanks for the help.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

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?

Mine, as is my computer, is never turned off except when I reboot it. You can set your computer to go into sleep mode when not used for a period of time...(I do not do this as I intermittently use it all day).

I leave ALL electronics turned on (except TV) 24/7. Been that way for YEARS.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

I will just note that a large percentage of drive failures occur when a drive is quiesced and then restarted. Storage manufacturers are well aware of this issue. During Y2K, we advised customers NOT to shut down their storage for this exact reason. In fairness, drives have changed a bit in the succeeding 19 years. I believe all/most drives now use air bearings for the spindle instead of lubricant, and of course, laptop drives are spinning up and down constantly. One of the storage companies I worked for sold being able to spin down unused banks of drives as a power saving feature,but I didn’t have a single customer that implemented it. Of course with SSDs, I’d leave them powered up all the time (except perhaps during a lightening event) - the power is minuscule, and the data can decay after long periods (>a year) without power.

Bill P

I have read many times that the MTBF of spinning hard drives is greater than SSD's. There seem to be a lot of folks that assume that SSD's and memory cards have infinite life, but it ain't so.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

wrangler5 wrote:

.....
I do have my computer set to go to sleep after 3 hours of inactivity, but don't know if that turns off the drives, too.
.....

Listen closely when you wake it up, I can hear the drive spin up on mine.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

[quote=Bill P]I have read many times that the MTBF of spinning hard drives is greater than SSD's...quote]

I’m sure you have, but if so, it is very old news. Modern SSDs are at least as reliable as spinning drives and generally more so.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Shellback wrote:

Mine are plugged in all the time - if they are not accessed by a program, they go into a standby (sleep) mode - so to me, not an issue...

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

JCam wrote:

Cheese ( img src="https://static.uglyhedgehog.com/... (show quote)

Aoemi is just one of several backup programs.... If you, check, your external drives may have come with one.

tommystrat Loc: Bigfork, Montana

D-Train wrote:

As someone that has gone through literally dozens ... (show quote)

Thanks for the sound advice...

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

frankraney wrote:

Aoemi is just one of several backup programs.... If you, check, your external drives may have come with one.

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

Jim

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

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).

Twinbro Loc: North Central Arkansas

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.