you can keep your hard drive on indefinantley if you like . the onley thing that can possibuley wear out is the bearings, even then bearings in HDDs are fluid dynamic bearings and wont wear out . older drives have ball bearings but they last extremeley long too.

thers nothing wrong with leaving it on all the time. there are some HDDs that have been on 24/7/365 for 20 years and are still running fine.

if it works the way i think it dose it should turn itself off when you turn the computer off , or go into some kind of stand by mode where its on but the disk itself is not sitting ther spinning.

How Long???
 

Dear theproudlunatic

I am a user of external hard disks and based on my own experience I guess I can answer a part of your question.

I use an external Lacie (160GB) HD to keep my shared files, I have had it running 24/7 for nearly 18 months with no problems. When my PC is on and accessing the drive it speeds up and when my PC is off the drive goes into "idle" mode.

I have another external that gets quite hot when in use so I have to switch that one off when I am not not using it.

Now the problem with buying externals is that reviews of them are few and far between and there is no way of knowing how reliable they will be until you start using them. However, I would say look for one made by a good manufacturer that specialises in peripherals (like Lacie) and you really can't go wrong from there.




UK Bob

PS. If you follow Ursula's advice about installation and usage then no will ever ask you, "Where is the Love?" :).

iv never herd of a HDD companey called lacie....all my drives are maxtors.

i think maxtor is like the world leader HDD maker (so they say),and have been for like 20 years(so they say).

the one in the older computer is fine and its been used for about 3-4 years now with no problems.

and the one i got 4 x-mas for my new comp has been fine for 7months now

but the one i got for my new comp wich was suposed to be the secondary 300gb drive ,had some bad sectors from the day i got it and is now being retuned.....i guss duds just happen sometimes...

Dear CRT

Lacie does not make HD they make computer peripherals and an external HD is one of those peripherals.

Here is their US site:

http://www.lacie.com


and here is their UK site:

http://www.lacie.com/uk


There's not much difference between the two sites productwise but I guess there is some UK specific tweaking.



UK Bob

just when i was about to give up and move on!!!!!!!thx bro.i checked out that site and those are some great prices.my EHD gets a little heated but nothing major.but i will need to shut her down from time to time(to be safe).i didnt know all EHD didnt have power switches.......i need one of those.i truly believe in taking a penny,putting a penny.....if im going to troll for stuff to DL,its only right to have stuf(WORTHY STUFF)to share.this one thread questions whether a host should have an option to be browsed or not....the host should always have an option or many hosts will leave altogether.how can you force someone to open up?!?!?!?they either will or wont.thats my speil.btw,as fond as i am of porn(thats a dirty word used to sully acts performed by 99.9% of us),why must EVERY SEARCH BE FILLED WITH EM?!?!?!?they are very distracting and i end up forgetting what i was originally searching for(and of course i end up DL'ing the naughty bits).

an off subject question...how does one operate an ''AVI CHUNK CHART''?!?!?!?!?!?the annoying dr watson debugger has gone poof and this chunk chart has replaced it.its not mucking up anything its just an annoyance.i looked it up on the net and it appears to be legit but the explaination given needed explaination.(hello,dunce cap model here!!!!!).so,if you can/want to,in layman terms,please splain?!?!?!?!?

and ty tube and fab.i hope i wasnt snippy but im a ny'er and everything is''right now right away'' not just right away.im trying to break that rude habit.