How much can an external hard drive take?

TheCenturion · 2 Apr 2009 at 09:57

Just bought an external desktop hard drive. I need to transfer around 500GB of files in one go, so it will be plugged in to my pc for an extremely long time. Will this kill it? How long can it be plugged in for before dying? I ask because I had a memory stick that died after being left in for few hours.

Five_Star · 2 Apr 2009 at 10:00

Both my 1TB and 500GB external disks are plugged in and running 24/7 for 18 months now no problem. They are both from WD one is USB the other eSATA

Paul11 · 2 Apr 2009 at 10:06

you can leave them plugged in and in use for hours and hours and hours

otherwise, what would be the point in having one you could only use for a certain amount of time ?

lopkinfop · 2 Apr 2009 at 11:03

most external HDDs have built in fans which will cool them a little bit. even if there is no fans and your using a HDD dock so the majority of the drive is exposed it never normally gets more than 40 C.

if the connection is eSata you might be able to monitor the temps.

bledd · 2 Apr 2009 at 12:06

just unlucky with the one that died.

FaceplantSi · 2 Apr 2009 at 20:18

Yeah as the others have said you'll be fine leaving them on all the time - we use quite a few at work for 'bare-metal' backups of CAD & GIS workstations and they are running 24/7 and never had a prob.

Oh, and Housey! (I'm an Old Blue too!)

Monkeynut · 2 Apr 2009 at 21:03

Even if they've no cooling, the case of a decent one is aluminium or steel anyway and so radiates the heat.