Airport Extreme + External Hard Drive on all the time

[jmazz12]

Hey all,
I have an airport extreme base station. I was wondering that if I buy an external hard drive to backup wirelessly with time machine, will that external stay on all the time? is there a way to control when the external powers up and down? or does that depend on the make and model of the external?

Thanks,
jmazz

 

[BudgetBaby]

I have an airport extreme with an iomega drive plugged into it and a WD drive plugged into that. They both spin down after a couple if minutes of inactivity but not sure if that's the airport or the disks themselves actioning the sleep.

Incidentally, I don't leave them turn on. I switch it on and back up, then switch off again.

 

[circularforward]

On my LaCie quadra, it automatically powers up and down. Whereas on my old acomdata, it seems to always be on.