Hard drive power up/down

[dazzer21]

I've got a new iMac system coming soon which comprises the machine and many, many peripherals - Merry Christmas to me!

Included in this little lot are three (count 'em) LaCie Porsche 320Gb USB2 external drives - I'm using one for time machine backup (to match the iMac's 320Gb internal drive), one for windows and one for porn. Sorry, just my sense of humour. Won't need the windows one!

Anyhoo, what's your take on powering HDs up and down. With three drives, I know I should power them down each time, but I've had an 80Gb drive recently go belly up and that was sometimes left on, sometimes switched off. Your thoughts?

 

[ChrisA]

Anyhoo, what's your take on powering HDs up and down. With three drives, I know I should power them down each time, but I've had an 80Gb drive recently go belly up and that was sometimes left on, sometimes switched off. Your thoughts?

All drives will fail. It is just a matter of when. Some last a week others 10 years. The best thing is to power the drive off if it is not going to be used for a "long time". I figure "long time" means about a half day.

Under preferences there is a check box "power drives down". Check it. Then Mac OS X can power the drives down for you when they are not in use and you will not have to mess with the power switch yourself

About Time machine. Your backup drive needs to be quite a bit larger then the system drive. Or at least lrger than the amount of data on the system drive because the TM drive will hold multiple copies or some files.