Using External Hard Drive.

PowerHouseDan

I Dont have enough room for another hard drive in my case, just wonderin i have a external hard drive case, would it be alright if i leave the External hard drive connected for long periods of time a few hours a day?

hostyle

powerhousedan wrote:

I Dont have enough room for another hard drive in my case, just wonderin i have a external hard drive case, would it be alright if i leave the External hard drive connected for long periods of time a few hours a day?

Yes. At work they're connected 24/7. Some people remember to power them down now and then. Others don't. Some of them are running for over 2 years.

PowerHouseDan

Thats the Job so.

Cheers.

airetam_storm

As long as you dont neeed to install to them...

PowerHouseDan

I am just using it for storing Mp3's and recording.

mp3guy

You could buy an internal drive and an enclosure for it, I *think* you get faster speeds, correct me if i'm wrong

StonedParadoX

funnily enough i bought a 100 gig drive its comin friday or saturday and its external
but thats not the case

i'd say u could leave it running all the time cuz what would be the point of having it on only a few hrs a day

if u wanna be insanely safe you turn turn it off/unplug it when your not around

DemonOfTheFall

If you bought an internal 7200 rpm drive and an enclosure for it I cant see any problem. It'd be the exact same thing as using it internally, unless you were playing rugby with it.

If youre not gonna buy an internal drive and an enclosure, make sure that whatever one you do get is 7200 rpm. Anything slower is a kick in the nuts to use.

RangeR

I bought this seagate 400GB 7200 rpm a few months back. Keep forgetting to power it down and it works a treat


http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1045186&productID=115885

rsynnott

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

If you bought an internal 7200 rpm drive and an enclosure for it I cant see any problem. It'd be the exact same thing as using it internally, unless you were playing rugby with it.

If youre not gonna buy an internal drive and an enclosure, make sure that whatever one you do get is 7200 rpm. Anything slower is a kick in the nuts to use.

Bear in mind that some enclosures are fussy about heat.

(Is using a 4200rpm laptop drive quite happily )

Duffman

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

If you bought an internal 7200 rpm drive and an enclosure for it I cant see any problem. It'd be the exact same thing as using it internally, unless you were playing rugby with it.

If youre not gonna buy an internal drive and an enclosure, make sure that whatever one you do get is 7200 rpm. Anything slower is a kick in the nuts to use.

Doesn't the speed of the interface negate the benefits of 7200 over 5400? Well with usb 2 certainly, I don't know anything about firewire.

Mutant_Fruit

Get a 5400RPM. Enclosures are heattraps, the less heat you make, the better for the HD. Its just a storage drive, so RPM doesn't really matter.

airetam_storm

Duffman wrote:

Doesn't the speed of the interface negate the benefits of 7200 over 5400? Well with usb 2 certainly, I don't know anything about firewire.

Firewire is slower than USB2 so no probs there...

DemonOfTheFall

Depends on the firewire.

USB = 480 mbps

Firewire = ? / 400 / 800 / ?


EDIT: No, interface shouldnt negate the advantage of a faster drive. 480 Mbps = 60 MBps. I'd like to see any 4200 / 5400 rpm drive touch that in sustained transfer speeds.