Is it okay to never turn off Western Digital My Book?

[cnixon]

I received a WD My Book and the Apple Airport Extreme for Xmas. I connected the External HD to Airport so I could use it as a network drive for Time Machine and some extra storage.

Everything works great, but the WD My Book has its own power supply and on/off switch. Is it okay if I never turn it off, or should I turn it off when I'm not using the extra storage?

thanks.

 

[MacDawg]

I leave mine on all the time and have for over a year

Just understand, all HDDs will fail eventually

 

[cnixon]

Thanks MacDawg. You and the rest of the guys on this forum are great.

 

[Bazzy]

I received a WD My Book and the Apple Airport Extreme for Xmas. I connected the External HD to Airport so I could use it as a network drive for Time Machine and some extra storage.

Everything works great, but the WD My Book has its own power supply and on/off switch. Is it okay if I never turn it off, or should I turn it off when I'm not using the extra storage?

thanks.

Hi,

Are you able to to wireless back ups with Time Machine with this set-up?

Bazzy!

 

[RMo]

Are you able to to wireless back ups with Time Machine with this set-up?

I'm not the OP, but I did some research into this issue a while back: the answer is no. Apple does not support TimeMachine with an AirDisk.

(Supposedly, many have gotten it to work by first connecting it locally, but Apple explicitly claims they do not support this setup, and I don't think it's wise to take a risk with something as important as backups.)

 

[S.B.G]

I have a 500GB WD My Book which is connected to my iMac via FW800 and I have left it on for over two years now. It's my Time Machine drive and it works great.