External drive, power up 24/7 ?

AndyMoody · 22 Oct 2008 at 13:28

I'm hopefully going to be sorting out an external drive using a WD5002ABYS RE3 in an Antec MX-1 enclosure. The enclosure has an on/off switch, should this be powered up 24/7 even when my PC is off, or switch it on before powering up PC and off again after the PC has shutdown?

rpstewart · 22 Oct 2008 at 13:36

You can power an external drive up and down as you need it without needing to reboot the PC.

bledd · 22 Oct 2008 at 14:16

yup

are you using esata or usb?

if you're using usb, you can add or remove it anytime from the pc
you can too with esata (if it shows up an the 'safely remove' hardware thing in taskbar -might need to be set as AHCI in bios

(don't set sata to ahci straight away, as you're main drive might not have the correct driver for it and could fail to load windows up, so be prepared to format incase you need to)

rpstewart · 22 Oct 2008 at 14:43

For eSATA drives not appearing in the Safely Remove Hardware list you can use Hotswap!

helmutcheese · 22 Oct 2008 at 15:13

Just set it for "Quick Removal" in the Device Manager and you don't need worry about any "Safely Remove Options", you do loose Write Cache though.

bledd · 22 Oct 2008 at 16:36

helmut, if it's not set as ahci in the bios, and doesn't have the safely remove icon. can you just plug it in at anytime? (it's a question, not a 'you're wrong' comment)

helmutcheese · 22 Oct 2008 at 16:41

bledd. said:
helmut, if it's not set as ahci in the bios, and doesn't have the safely remove icon. can you just plug it in at anytime? (it's a question, not a 'you're wrong' comment)

I am on a Nvidia Mobo, I dont need bother/mess with ACHI.

I also do not mess with customer builds (recently P45's) with Externals so no clue, I just install windows in ACHI mode anyhow.

bledd · 22 Oct 2008 at 18:16

yeah, my nf4 board is like that, just 'works'

but it does show the safely remove hardware thing, does it for you?

helmutcheese · 22 Oct 2008 at 18:19

Yes the "MY Book" is in the Safely Remove Hardware Window for me which is only needed if you enable Write Caching (Optimise For Performance), if not you can plug/unplug it like a USB Stick once its stopped Reading/Writing.