Storage Solutions How safe is it to always connect external HDD?

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thenvk

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I am planing to connect my external HDD to my machine, always...

Is it safe? Or should I use it only as per the need... 1-2 hrs per day?

Also, I have seagate 1tb desk ext drive.
My config is intel D 2.6hz,1gb DDR1 400 ram+200,500gb hdds. What transfer speeds can I expect, when I copy files from internal hdd to ext hdd
I tested with Teracopy and found that its transferring at 15KB/s(Default settings) and max 25KB/S

Please help me...
 
It is perfectly ok to connect I guess.. Mine is connected for about 14 days continuously now.. I use terabyte too.. I get speeds of 26MBps average.. If the HDD is not being used, it enters sleep mood (atleast mine does).. It takes some time to actually initiate data transfer to it..

+1 to advice about not seeding/download directly to the external HDD.. might degrade performance..
 
thenvk said:
Some one help please... are they right speeds i am getting for my config?
Click to expand...

i am not sure on what to expect, but, this is almost the same i get. usb 2.0 will always be a bottleneck for any sata drive. can get far better speeds if it had been a esata casing with a 1 tb stata drive.

or maybe, if you really want to keep it connected always, you can remove the casing and directly connect the hdd to the pc. will give better transfer rates. but am not sure about what it will do to the warranty.
 
I suggest you run the latest version of Everest and monitor the temperature of the external HDD. Everest is the only program I have come across that reads HDD temperatures from external USB HDDs.

Some extenal cases make the HDD temperatures reach unsafe levels. Low 40's C is the max I would let any of my HDDs run at.
 
thenvk said:
I am planing to connect my external HDD to my machine, always...

Is it safe? Or should I use it only as per the need... 1-2 hrs per day?

Also, I have seagate 1tb desk ext drive.

My config is intel D 2.6hz,1gb DDR1 400 ram+200,500gb hdds. What transfer speeds can I expect, when I copy files from internal hdd to ext hdd

I tested with Teracopy and found that its transferring at 15KB/s(Default settings) and max 25KB/S

Please help me...
Click to expand...

What is the purpose of your External HDD?

Is it just an extension of your internal drive. If that is the case you may have no choice.

  • On the one hand, the connected drive is consuming some non-zero power. Which means consuming the active life of the peripheral. This also means a little bit extra power for your PSU to provide.
  • On the other hand, each connection/disconnection hurts your connector. Minor issue though.

However, if the ext HDD is meant to be a backup then it is bad risk management to have it continuously connected. Better to connect just when the backup is to be taken.

Bottom line - It's your call
 
Is it possible to connect external hdd directly by removing it from casing&connecting to sata ports on mobo?am talking of 2.5" drives...
 
Eazy said:
I suggest you run the latest version of Everest and monitor the temperature of the external HDD. Everest is the only program I have come across that reads HDD temperatures from external USB HDDs.

Some extenal cases make the HDD temperatures reach unsafe levels. Low 40's C is the max I would let any of my HDDs run at.
Click to expand...

I don't understand how can a software read temps unless there is something specific intergrated in the hardware itself to check/forward.
Only way I can think of is the HDD rotation speed which computes to some approx temps.
 
47Shailesh said:
I don't understand how can a software read temps unless there is something specific intergrated in the hardware itself to check/forward.
Only way I can think of is the HDD rotation speed which computes to some approx temps.
Click to expand...

I can confirm everest does since it reads temps of my acomdata 1tb external drive. ;)
 
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