I’ve just bought a 500GB external HD - my PC is getting pretty old and blue-screening often enough to make me think back-ups are a Good Thing. Also my iTunes library is getting rather large and I wanted to move it off the internal HD so I can free up some space.
It’s a Seagate, this model, and it seems to work fine. I’ve backed up my photos and moved my iTunes library across.
But I’ve never had an external HD before so I’m unsure exactly how they’re meant to be used. Should I leave it on all the time? Obviously if I’m using iTunes I’ll need it running. What about when I switch the computer off - should I unplug it from the power socket? There’s no power switch on the HD unit itself - the only way to “switch it off” appears to be to pull the plug out of the wall.
Finally, do I need to unmount the disk before I shut the computer down? I tried to do that this morning using the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the system tray and got the message that “the volume could not be stopped right now because it is in use”. I’d closed all programs so I don’t know why it should have been in use.
Anyway I just put the PC onto standby without unmounting. Is that OK practice?
I remove my USB hard drive all the time simply by unplugging it from the jack. I never had a problem either with the drive or the computer by doing so, and it is one of those that gets its power via the USB cable.
The blurb on Amazon says “Built-in power management ensures energy efficient operation” so I imagine it’s OK to leave it plugged in all the time and it will just hibernate when not needed?
When I get that message it’s usually Windows Explorer that’s to blame - apparently Windows considers a drive’s content being viewed in the right pane of Windows Explorer sufficient for the drive’s being ‘in use’.
I’m pretty sure I’d closed down all Explorer windows too, although it’s possible I had one minimised I suppose. I wonder if Windows was busy doing some kind of indexing in the background and stopping me unmounting it.
Anyway my question remains - should I unmount the drive before shutting down, or does shutting down unmount stuff safely automatically?
Don’t unmount. Seagate external HDDs have an in-built unconfigurable sleep mode, designed to prevent overheating, and extend its life more than other drives.
I doubt it achieves that, really, but it does mean you don’t have to switch it off in any way, and it can be left on 24hrs a day.
The sleep mode can be a nuisance when you want to use it, as the drive will wind up into use each time. There are third party apps to deal with that, though, if you wish.
OK, thanks, that pretty much answers my question. Now I just need to find something to fill another 300GB of disk space
(This makes my mind boggle. I still have the manual from my 48K Spectrum which breathlessly talked about the 85kB Microdrives you could plug into the back. It said you could link up to eight of them together giving you “total online storage of 680kB!”)
