Comments for Should I turn off my external hard drive when not in use?

Comment from Budd on 2009-10-06

2009-10-06T11:08:25Z

Hehe thats like saying should i leave my lights on when im a sleep it shouldnt matter but yes it all depends on what type of external you have if it has a fan it should do better than most if its a known brand even better but nothing lasts forever

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Comment from JIM on 2009-08-18

2009-08-18T18:31:16Z

I have a WD 2.0 ext dr. It must be a very early model as it's not shown pon the WD product pages, it's several years old.
It doesn't shot down with the XP PC, the green light stays on. I put an ext on/off switch to the WD power supply. Don't like using this because the drive shuts down really hard.
Not sure it needs to be shut of at the power supply.
When it sits for some period of time and I fire up the beast some kind of bar red runs across the moniter. I now asssume the drive shaft has disconnected and is now reconnecting. After the red bar goes away the WD works.
Have had this unit for several years and it has always run when asked to.

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Comment from scott on 2009-01-06

2009-01-06T14:22:42Z

This article is misleading and incorrect for many users.

Many of the most inexpensive external drives. Which likly make up the majority of external drives sold have NO power management system and will overheat and crash if use all the time. They run at full spin all the time.

non-savy user who just buy the cheapest external they can and don't do anything to keep it from overheating.will usally find that in will crash within 3-4 months.

Check the manual of your external drive. it will tell you what is your best corse of action.

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Comment from Avish on 2009-01-01

2009-01-02T05:41:22Z

I have a 1TB Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition. Should I keep that on? I use it sometimes. It is mostly for storage....

Is it better to turn it off using the safely remove hardware or just hitting the power button on the drive?

Also, is there any part in the bios that allows Firewire on like USB Legacy support? Because I'm having problems when starting the computer, if the drive is on - it'll freeze and the Windows XP loading screen and just sit there for hours and never load... but when it is off it'll go through that fine.... I called WD but they weren't much help...

Thanks!

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Comment from Mohammed on 2008-06-18

2008-06-18T12:53:47Z

Hi, I have a Seagate 300G external hard rive which works perfectly except:

1. When you turn it on it is fine.
2. When you turn it off and then turn on again (after any period of time), it doesn't turn on.
3. To turn it back on again, I take the power cable out and then put it back in again and it works fine.

This needs to be repeated every time I switch it off and on again without taking out the power cable.

The drive is about 8 months old and I have been having this problem for few months now.

Any ideas, why it is behaving like this?

Thanks.

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2008-04-19

2008-04-19T17:46:49Z

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Yes - disks powerdown durign standby, hibernation and of
couse, power off.

Leo

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Comment from Lois on 2008-04-16

2008-04-16T19:31:30Z

Do hard drives shut down when my system goes into stand-by or hibernation? The Power Options on my laptop allow stand-by, hibernation and shutting down the hard drives after various lengths of time. If I have it going into stand by or hibernation after let's say 20 minuted idle, is there any reason to tell it to shut down the hard drives? Also, I have my laptop set to go into hibernation when I close the lid. I do this sometimes overnight and sometimes I do this for days at a time. Is this wise?

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Comment from John on 2008-03-14

2008-03-14T08:13:44Z

** I am using an iMac
My external hard drive has been partitioned into 3 sections.

BEFORE I TURN OFF MY EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE - do I need to 'eject'each disk partition on the external hard drive - before I turn off my iMac ?

- Is it similar to 'ejecting' a USB storage device, before removing it, so as to avoid the LOSS OF INFORMATION, that can occur if you do not use this sequence before removing the device.

This information is not to be found in the user manual, and I get a little pissed off with these manufacturers in that they can be quite scant in the info they provide. Especially considering the consequences !!!

I would be truly grateful for a reply.

John

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Comment from Bob on 2008-01-14

2008-01-14T19:19:07Z

Thanks for the information. I just bought an external IDE hard disk USB enclosure and installed an extra hard disk I had laying around in it. Te enclosure has an on/off switch, so I am contemplating if I should turn it off after I have powered down my computer or not. I am tempted to turn it off since my other hard disks are being cycled like this and they have had good life spans.

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Comment from George Arauz on 2008-01-06

2008-01-06T12:36:56Z

I own a Mac and with my external drive not having an on/off switch it doesnt really matter. My external is mostly for music and etc for my ipod but i dont see why turning it off would be essential anyway.

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Comment from Thor Johnson on 2008-01-02

2008-01-02T15:27:27Z

A note on spin downs: Beware that Desktop HD's are rated notoriously low on spinup/down cycles (~3000 for a select few), so constantly spinning them up/down will kill them in short order.

[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi-support/+bug/59695]

Laptop drives, OTOH are supposed to have much better spinup/down specs...

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Comment from ::G on 2008-01-01

2008-01-01T23:53:36Z

To Roger: Not all drives use the CSS (contact start/stop) mechanism you described. All Hitachi hard drives use a load/unload ramp, which causes no friction wear to the head. (Ramps can have other issues, however.) Seagate's 3.5" drives still use CSS, last I heard, so people who use that vendor may wish to avoid excessive power cycling.

Also, most spindle bearings are FDB (fluid dynamic bearings) so bearing wear isn't nearly as much of an issue as it used to be. Modern flex tapes generally don't have fatigue issues, either, at least from what I hear being in development. (I work in the industry.)

Other remarks: What does concern me is electronics wear with power cycling, since electromigration effects are greater as transistor size shrinks (current generation SOCs are 90nm). However, risk of head-disk interaction as a result of internal contamination, application of external force, or other issues (firmware problems, failure to park on an emergency power-off, etc.) counterbalances the argument to leaving a drive on all the time, since usage of the drive raises risk of HDI. Excessive heat due to the drive running can exacerbate thermal decay of written data, as well.

All drives will experience degradation of the magnetics because of superparamagnetism, whether they are on or off. This is a practical limit on the lifespan of a drive due to degradation of the once-written servo pattern. Copying data to an HDD and leaving it in the closet for 5 years is NOT safe -- I'd prefer optical media. (Just make sure to use a high-quality brand like Taiyo Yuden, not the cheap stuff, which can delaminate.)

In the end, because of the complexity of HDDs, the differences in models, and the difficulty of extracting probabilities of failure, whether to power down or not is still a matter of preference. I shut off most all of my HDDs when not in use, since I view the mechanical and magnetic risks to be greater than the electronics ones. Thus far, I've had good luck. If one chooses to leave a drive on all the time, definitely make sure it's well cooled. Multiple backups over multiple drives is the safe thing to do. Also, don't trust what the manufacturer says about drive life -- the one oddball failure on the Weibull projection could be the one with your data on it.

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Comment from James Fox on 2008-01-01

2008-01-01T23:04:17Z

One additional factor not mentioned was the role of power supply stability. Power surges from the AC line do not help, and brief interruptions (often due to lightning or bad weather) do not help the longevity of hard drives either. I use a ZeroSurge series filter plugged into the AC outlet to protect against surges, and a APC un-interruptible power supply plugged into the Zero Surge to protect against interruptions, with the PC of course being plugged into the APC.

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Comment from Bill Leeper on 2008-01-01

2008-01-01T18:41:00Z

I have a Maxtor external drive attached to my Mac and it doesn't seem to spin down. There is no delay when I browse three or four folders deep after it has been setting there for some time. The vibration level also seems to remain constant at all times. It should feel a bit different if there were just a fan running and not the drive.

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-12-31

2007-12-31T23:10:41Z

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My Maxtors (I have two) do not *power* down, but they do
*spin* down. Meaning that the lights stay on, but the drive
stops rotating. Biggest clue is that as soon as you browse
the drive beyond the root or current folder there's a 10-15
second delay as the drive spins up.

Leo

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-12-31

2007-12-31T18:42:29Z

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Domenic: not correct. The speed of your USB should only
affect your data transfer rate. The connection isn't used
that heavily when booting (if at all) - unless of course
you're booting *from* the USB device, in which case yes,
it'll be slower.

Leo

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Comment from Adrian Barrett on 2007-12-31

2007-12-31T13:14:46Z

I have three external drives, only the oldest a Freecom 120GB model has no switch and turns itself on and off with the computer. It was the first external drive I bought and contains DV video files I edit on Premiere so it is used either intensively, or not at all so the answer is to unplug the USB cable unless I specifically need it. Both the other drives have power switches.

In an ideal world with a multi-external drive setup we would be organised to have one set ot type of files on one drive (i.e. photos), another with a different type (office work, etc), and one for backups but the reality it it doesn't work that way as developing another arrow to my PC bow means I have hundreds of different filetypes.

Also, those handy personal external drives that work off USB power and now reach 160GB or more capacity will ALWAYS switch on and off with the PC/Laptop, so as these are more expensive in the first place are they economically viable with all that wear and tear bearing inmind the travelling wear and tear in a bag?

Keep up the good work, great site and newsletter!

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Comment from Eli Coten on 2007-12-29

2007-12-29T18:20:41Z

I have a Maxtor External hard drive and I've never seen it power-down. and I have left it turned on & unused for a long period of time. It also doesn't have an on/off switch for some reason.

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Comment from Domenic Cocozza on 2007-12-29

2007-12-29T09:32:15Z

If you dont have a fast connection USB it will take ages to 'Boot Up' when you switch on if your xternal hard drive is in the on'' mode: correct?
LOVE YOUR NEWSLETTER. DOMENIC.

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Comment from Carl R. Goodwin on 2007-12-28

2007-12-29T03:49:40Z

My "old" Maxtor drive, which was not even a year old, failed BECAUSE I turned it on and off every time the computer was shut down. The on/off switch failed, and I had to jiggle it to get it to run. My new drive, a W/D turns itself on and off with the computer, so there is at least no mechanical failure possible like there was with the Maxtor.

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Comment from Roger on 2007-12-28

2007-12-29T02:51:57Z

I've pondered this on end. Having worked for 25 years servicing disc drives (along with other equipment) I did observe that most failures in 'electronics' seem to occur on power down/up sequences. However 'mechanical failures' occurred more randomly.
Read/write heads actually float on a cushion of air created by the spinning of the disc. Older designs "loaded" the heads against the surfaces after the drive is spinning. Newer designs "park" the heads in a null spot until the drive starts up, but are always 'loaded'.
Ergo, starting and stopping the drive allows the head to land on the surface (wear on head) and exposes you to electronic failures due to power spikes.
BUT, constant spinning wears the spindle bearing assembly, and you can sometimes see (hear) this on older drives as they become noisier. The one advantage this choice offers is the likely-hood you will hear the increased noise and back up your drive before failure.
The greater concern in my mind, than either of these scenarios, is the constant scans performed by security programs which are 'pounding' drives relentlessly, day after day. The R/W heads are linked by tiny wires or film strips to circuits on the base. These electrical connections 'flex' with every repositioning. If you bend a conductor enough times---.
Not to be 'un-green', The power consumption issue would be offset by skipping one trip downtown a year. Probably for your whole PC if you live in a metropolitan area and wait in traffic! Roger

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