Do hard drives connected to Airport Extreme go to sleep?

[KittyKatta]

Does anyone know if hard drives connected to an Airport Extreme or Time Capsule go to sleep?


I have an external 1TB portable drive (2.5" Bus powered) that I sometimes take with me but mostly want plugged into my Airport Extreme so I can access iTunes wirelessly. When plugged directly to my computer it goes into a low power mode when not in use, but I don't know if thats a hard drive sensor or a computer one. So I want to know if a drive will fall asleep when plugged into an Airport Extreme because portables seem more for casual use so I don't want to burn it out by leaving it plugged in 24/7.

 

[randomosity]

mine goes to sleep

 

[GoCubsGo]

Mine technically sleeps. It stops spinning and has to "spin up" when called.

 

[kuwisdelu]

They do. Whenever I need to access one that I've left idle for a while, it'll need to spin up again.

 

[KittyKatta]

So then is it safe to leave a portable hard drive connected 24/7 to the time capsule? Ive been doing it a few days and my drive seems very slightly warm despite it not even being mounted anywhere so Im wondering if its spinning.

 

[iThink Apple]

So then is it safe to leave a portable hard drive connected 24/7 to the time capsule? Ive been doing it a few days and my drive seems very slightly warm despite it not even being mounted anywhere so Im wondering if its spinning.

I just got an Apple Extreme Base Station.....So is it ok do leave like a WD Passport plugged in 24/7? Will it crash after a while or is it bad? TY

 

[swordfish5736]

I did it for 2 years without issue. If the drive does spin down then it's be no different than having a computer on all the time.