External drives - can you leave them on all the time?

karavite

karavite

Registered
Hi. I'm not sure if this is a dumb or worthwhile question, but here goes. I have a few new external Firewire drives (LaCie) I am using all the time and I was wondering if it was okay to just leave the little guys on all the time. They seem to do something when I put my Mac to sleep (their little lights seem to dim out), so do they somehow "go to sleep" too? If I should unmount them and turn them off every time I put my computer to sleep I will do that - just not sure if it is even neccessary.

Thanks in advance.
 
I've got 2 lacie firewire drives hooked to my powerbook occassionally.

if the computer's on a while, but the drives are not in use, they take a snooze. That's default. I think you'll be ok just letting them do what they need.

if you're worried, umount/power down. but I've not in over a year and mine are fine (as far as I know...)
 
Thanks! This makes sense that the drives power down. Am I always on this machine, but will periodically power them down now and again. By the way, I also have LaCie drives - the "Porsche" model. Someone on this forum said they "suck", but I thought this was a great brand. I suppose I am incredibly susceptible to rumor and opinion, but I have tons of family video on these drives - one backs up the other. Now I am a little worried...
 
I have the Lacie Porche model. So far no trouble, could be a bit faster, I will live. My is on most of the time, and seldom umount and turn off.
 
LaCie drives are really just an enclosure that holds a standard IDE hard drive. I don't know what brand they usually put in them Western Digital perhaps? Eitherway, I wouldn't worry about your data, they should be just as reliable as any other hard drive, because they are any other hard drive.

Just to give you an idea of the life of _most_ drives, my western digital's that I have in my PC have been in there for 3+ years now. Before i got my G5, I left that thing on ALL the time. No problems yet.
 
Thanks to all. I can rest easier now. Plus I back up all my drives to other drives, so why am I being such a wuss? Thank the lord for Carbon Copy Cloner.
 
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