Ok to leave external HD on?
 

I have an external 80 gig LaCie Firewire drive, and I was wondering if it's okay to leave it turned on perpetually. I always forget to turn it on when I'm about to start editing a project whose media is stored on said drive, and I'm quite sick of the error messages. Also, the extensive mouse clicking required to make the computer permit me to turn off the drive is annoying.

LOL

Sorry, Josh, you're post caught me funny.

That's why they make Post-It Notes! And stop complaining about clicking the mouse. If you're like me, that's the most exercise you'll get all day! ;o)

doesn't hurt anything...caveat:
1. it occupies the 1394 bus with handshaking...not really a problem
2. it adds hours to your hard drive, their lifetime is rather limited.

Limited? AAAHHHHH! So one day I'll turn it on and it'll just say "f*ck you" and my media will be lost forever?

Yeah, thats one of my few complaints with external firewire HD's---the one's I have don't have an on off switch----

This is an age old question. Is it better to turn off the drive or leave it on? Truthfully there is no answer. The camp is equally divided.

Bill puts forth one argument. The other side is that the constant heating up and cooling down causes components to fail.

I guess my take on it is Murphy's Law. Your hard drive will fail when the most important and least repairable data is on it. Empty hard drives never fail. They always wait until just before you're scheduled to back them up.

Jeff

Jeff...
LOL....actually there a reason:
when data is stored on the HD, the magnetic media molecules(MMM for short) are aligned to counter the earth's magnetosphere, resulting in more torque needed to drive the platter, resulting in more heat generation, resulting in earlier motor failure...

see, anything can be explained without the use of Murphy's...<vbg>

all kidding aside...I leave my computer at work on 24x7...it's been running for 2 years steady...keep hoping it will die so I can get a new one.....but, the damn thing just keeps on ticking...ticking...ticking. I turn my computer at home off when I'm finished...and it has yet to fail...so, throw the dice and place your bets, folks.

Oh yah, right, Bill. Everybody knows it's increased sunspot activity that causes hard drives to fail. Or it's their power supplies, Dylithium Crystals, fail.

Jeff

According to entropy, it's easier for stuff to screw up then to work correctly. So I'll just bite the bullet and allot 30 additional seconds of my busy day to turning on and off the drive. Thanks for the help.