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Do you run your external drives all day?
- Thread starter dogbone
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I actually leave my single 160 GB HD all day and night, as there are files within that i constantly access and my iTunes Library is also located within it
SpaceMagic
macrumors 68000
What's the difference leaving an external drive on over an internal one? I do it - night and day.
SpaceMagic said:
Yes, this is something I have started to think about and i wondered why I never thought about it before I got an external drive.
I'm coming to the conconclusion that it's just an irrational feeling based on the fact that the external drive is now in sight and therefore in mind.
I did used to wonder about the internal drive sleeping and spinning up but not as much as the external now I have one.
But the more I try to understand what is the best way to treat it the harder it is to get some kind of an answer. Look at this question and response I got from the La Cie technical support.
In my system preferences there is an option to sleep hard disks when
possible Im not sure what is the best option to have. ie, is it worse for
the drive to keep spinning up and down again or is it best to leave this
option unchecked.
I have noticed that even if I leave the above option unchecked, the la cie
will still stop and go cold after a while.
Is there any harm that can come to the hard drive if it stays warm for a
long time. Ive noticed that if I unmount the drive it powers down. Is it a
good idea to do this or just leave it mounted and let it eventually shut
itself down if it isnt being used?
They replied
We recommend that you eject and turn off the hard drive when not in use. If
you use it on and off during a working day then it is OK to leave it on till
you finish for the day.
In other words they said Yes then said No. Weird.
I suppose the reason that I or anyone would care is only because of the fear of a catastrophic hard drive failure.
here was another question and answer
If the drive spins up and down say about 10 times a day, and remains on all
day, what would be the expected average length of time before it had a fatal
failure? One year, Two, Five, Ten?
There is no way I can answer that question. A hard drive is made from very
delicate electrical and mechanical parts. From my own personal experience I
have had hard drives last 4-5 years while others last under a year.
I must say I wasn't encouraged by that answer, this tech support guy seems to be suggesting 4-5 years as a maximum! Does this mean after 5 years one should think about backing up a hard drive and trashing it?.
But then we've all used computers that have been running internal drives for 10 years and more without failure.
Who knows. It's very tricky getting some straightforward answers.
dogbone said:
Well its been keeping pretty cool and i figured if the internal hard drive is in constant use inside computers, then an external hd being left on constantly couldnt be that much different from say someone who leaves their computer on all day and night.
macOSX-tastic
macrumors 6502a
I have a regular 250gb 3.5" external, I've had it for about 2 and a half years.
the only time i've ever powered it down is when i'm away, or when i'm moving it.
I leave it on day and night and it's been fine.
I also have a lcie 500gb, i've only had it about 6 months, but I also leave it on, it's a lot quieteras it actually spins down after about 10mins on none use, which is great.
my only peeve is that if I have itunes open, and don't se it for 10mins or so, then play a song, there's a few seconds delay while the lacie spins up again, but after that it's great
I recommend leaving it on, as it spins down when it needs to, but more impotantly than that...back it up, back it all up.
the only time i've ever powered it down is when i'm away, or when i'm moving it.
I leave it on day and night and it's been fine.
I also have a lcie 500gb, i've only had it about 6 months, but I also leave it on, it's a lot quieteras it actually spins down after about 10mins on none use, which is great.
my only peeve is that if I have itunes open, and don't se it for 10mins or so, then play a song, there's a few seconds delay while the lacie spins up again, but after that it's great
I recommend leaving it on, as it spins down when it needs to, but more impotantly than that...back it up, back it all up.
externals are off when not in use
unless you have an itunes database or something else which you NEED all the time, i would shut them off:
1. less energy being used (and we, as humans generally speaking, suck as wasting energy) 🙂
2. less wear and tear on the HDs
another post asked what the difference is between turning off internals vs externals...well, imho, internals are cooled more efficiently and usually contain critical data/processes/apps. otherwise i would turn them off.
actually, i have an esata enclosure with 2 500 GB HDs and if i know i won't be needing them, i'll won't turn on the enclosure. if i ended up neededing them, i do a restart and start the enclosure.
cheers,
Keebler
unless you have an itunes database or something else which you NEED all the time, i would shut them off:
1. less energy being used (and we, as humans generally speaking, suck as wasting energy) 🙂
2. less wear and tear on the HDs
another post asked what the difference is between turning off internals vs externals...well, imho, internals are cooled more efficiently and usually contain critical data/processes/apps. otherwise i would turn them off.
actually, i have an esata enclosure with 2 500 GB HDs and if i know i won't be needing them, i'll won't turn on the enclosure. if i ended up neededing them, i do a restart and start the enclosure.
cheers,
Keebler
dogbone said:
I have a bank of three external drives that are hooked up to a mac mini I use as a server. These drives are left on 24/7.
Wear and tear on the drives is a non issue since I have my energy saver preferences set to spin down the drives when they are not in use. Drives do wear out, but with them spinning down when not in use this is equivalent to unplugging them for the purposes of mechanical wear and tear.
External drives will spin up when you are accessing the files on the drives and when spotlight is automatically checking the index on the drives. I have spotlight set to not index my external drives to avoid the extra spin-up times since I don't need spotlight searching on these drives.
Also, if you install Developer Tools there is a utility included that allows you to change to spin-down time for all drives on the system. The time defaults to 10 minutes of inactivity on OS X, but you can reduce or increase this time if you want to.
Over the past 12 years I've had about 23 different hard drives connected to several desktop computers that I've used over this time. All these machines where keep on 24/7 and the hard drives were typically in use for between 3 and 6 years. In all this time I've had one hard drive failure. The failure was covered by waranty and was a widespread problem with that particular drive model.
I have a USB 160 GB LaCie HD connected to my mini. They're both on 24/7 (except for reboots for software updates and such). On my mini, the drive goes to sleep after a certain amount of time.
I haven't changed any energy settings, and desktop macs (afaik) don't let you change how long the HD spins through System Preferences.
I haven't changed any energy settings, and desktop macs (afaik) don't let you change how long the HD spins through System Preferences.
mikes63737 said:
This is why I specifically stated that the utility that lets you control the spin-down time is part of Developer Tools. The utility is named "SpindownHD" and can be extracted from the Developer Tools package using pacifist if you don't want/need the full Developer Tools package to be installed.
disconap
macrumors 68000
Vaphoron said:
Me as well. Mostly because I used to run mine 24/7 and then it crashed on me. Hard. Not sure if it was related, but I figure at the very least I am conserving energy...
(plus I noticed that when I unmount the drive while connected via firewire, it doesn't spin down, but if I unmount when using USB2.0, it does. No idea what that is about)