Is it safe to only turn on / off an external hard drive when using it?

[mshan]

I just got a Fantom Titanium II 250 GB external hard drive.

It's kind of noisy (grainy idle noise with a slight whine too), so I am wondering if it is safe (in terms of data integrity and long term reliability of the drive - it's got an MDT hard drive inside 🙁 - which is apparently a Sinapore company that sells OEM recertified hard drives) to just turn the hard drive on and off when I am going to use it.

I plan on hooking it up to an Intel iMac and use it as a dedicated drive for iMovie video files only (operating system etc. will remain on internal drive)

 

[lobbyone]

I think its a good idea to turn off your external HDD if not in use, which I guess would lengthen its life.

 

[stevem326]

I have an external Western Digital drive called My Book and WD recommends leaving it off when not in use. They don't specifically say why but I would assume it's the whole wear and tear thing...although with most HD's having like 500K to 1 million hours of MTBF these days (mean time before failure) I'm not sure you're harming it by leaving it on.

 

[mshan]

The hard drive has a grainy idle noise with a good amount of whine to it.

So if I won't be reducing it's lifespan, I would like to just turn it on and off when working with iMovie video files I'd be storing on it.

Owner's manual seems to say not to "hot swap" the hard drive (which I guess is what I'd be doing when turning it on and off while the main computer is running), but box says "fully hot pluggable USB 2.0 interface."

 

[Bob Anderson]

Originally posted by: mshan
I just got a Fantom Titanium II 250 GB external hard drive.

It's kind of noisy (grainy idle noise with a slight whine too), so I am wondering if it is safe (in terms of data integrity and long term reliability of the drive - it's got an MDT hard drive inside 🙁 - which is apparently a Sinapore company that sells OEM recertified hard drives) to just turn the hard drive on and off when I am going to use it.

I plan on hooking it up to an Intel iMac and use it as a dedicated drive for iMovie video files only (operating system etc. will remain on internal drive)

Just make sure it isn't reading or writing when you turn it off. I have two externals, one more than a year old, and I only turn them on when doing backups, which is once a day for 10 minutes.

-Bob

 

[stogez]

Like Bob said, just make sure its not being used when turning it off. Those cases arent the most ventilated and can get pretty hot. Its probably not a good idea to switch it on and off too often in a short period of time either. The constant spin up and down can wear the drive out.

 

[mshan]

Is it safe to power up the drive after the main computer has already started and powerdown likewise, as long as nothing is being currently written to the hard drive?

 

[Bob Anderson]

Originally posted by: mshan
Is it safe to power up the drive after the main computer has already started and powerdown likewise, as long as nothing is being currently written to the hard drive?

You can power up the external before the main computer is powered up if you want. And you can also power down the external after the main computer is shut down if you want, as long as the external is not reading or writing when you shut down the main computer.

Bottom line? As long as nothing is being written or read to the external, you can power it up or shut it down, regardless of the state of the main computer.

-Bob

 

[Skyguy]

Turn er off when not in use.

 

[stevem326]

Thanks for this advice. I usually just let my external HD run whenver my PC is on but I think I'll just power it down from now on if it's not being used.