Best to leave my unplugged INTERNAL HDD without power?

[sdhaku]

I recently cloned my primary C HDD over to SDD. What I plan to do is leave the HDD mounted in my case and just be able to plug it in if I ever have issues with the new SSD. The SATA cable will be unplugged but I'm just curious is it bad for the HDD if I leave the power hooked up to it? The MOBO isn't connected just power.

 

[USAFRet]

I recently cloned my primary C HDD over to SDD. What I plan to do is leave the HDD mounted in my case and just be able to plug it in if I ever have issues with the new SSD. The SATA cable will be unplugged but I'm just curious is it bad for the HDD if I leave the power hooked up to it? The MOBO isn't connected just power.

After a couple of days of using the SSD as the OS drive and verifying it works, why wouldn't you plug the HDD in and use it?
Maybe a folder containing an image of the SSD, but use the rest of it.

In answer to your question:
If you're NOT going to use it, unplug both cables, data and power.

 

[R_1]

as a follow up to what ASAF said. if you leave the power cable plugged in the drive will power up with the PC. powering up and doing nothing can be harmful over time. Either use it or unplug it.

 

[sdhaku]

Okay I can unplug the power. It's easier to access the SATA cables in my case than the power cables so if there were no ill effects I was just going to leave it plugged in. That was the first clone I had ever done so I'll try to make an image as well. If successful I suppose I can reformat it and use it too. Maybe I'll play around with dual boot operating systems.

 

[USAFRet]

as a follow up to what ASAF said. if you leave the power cable plugged in the drive will power up with the PC. powering up and doing nothing can be harmful over time. Either use it or unplug it.

Okay I can unplug the power. It's much easier to access the SATA cables in my case than the power so if there were no ill effects I'd prefer just to leave it plugged in.

On the drive, the data and power are right next to each other.
Either use it, or unplug it completely.

 

[sdhaku]

as a follow up to what ASAF said. if you leave the power cable plugged in the drive will power up with the PC. powering up and doing nothing can be harmful over time. Either use it or unplug it.

Okay I can unplug the power. It's much easier to access the SATA cables in my case than the power so if there were no ill effects I'd prefer just to leave it plugged in.

On the drive, the data and power are right next to each other.
Either use it, or unplug it completely.

I meant the SATA cable on the MOBO being easier to access but you're right I should just unplug power. Thanks!

 

[captaincharisma]

you can always use the old HDD as a secondary drive too