Do I need to disconnect external drives when powering down PC?

[kol12]

Should I disconnect external hard drives when powering down the PC as you would when disconnecting a drive or is it ok to leave them plugged in and power up and down as usual?

 

[atomicWAR]

I always power up/down my server which runs A LOT of external drives via eSATA with no issues. If your using USB that could change things, it shouldn't but I have had weird luck with USB drives over the years. Whether it is them dropping large file transfers, randomly disconnecting or not showing up at boot (ie I have to reconnect them) USB drives have always caused me more hassle then eSATA and thus why I exclusively use eSATA for my external drives. Thumb drives not included.

 

[SkyNetRising]

If you power down your pc with a normal shutdown sequence, then you can leave them connected.
If you power down in any other way (disconnecting power cord or holding down power button),
then you should safely remove them first.

 

[atomicWAR]

If you power down your pc with a normal shutdown sequence, then you can leave them connected.
If you power down in any other way (disconnecting power cord or holding down power button),
then you should safely remove them first.

eSATA not so much but absolutely true when using USB drives.

 

[kol12]

Both are usb drives with one being an AC powered backup drive with usb connection and yes I was referring to a proper shutdown sequence.

 

[atomicWAR]

So yeah as long as your doing proper shut down it should not be an issue (least more times then not).

 

[kol12]

So yeah as long as your doing proper shut down it should not be an issue (least more times then not).

I guess because it's going through a proper shutdown procedure it's not the same as just pulling the usb cable from the drive without properly disconnecting it. I guess you may be able to eject the drives before shutting down and not have to unplug and reinsert the usb cable each time on boot because that would be annoying, but if it doesn't make any difference I will leave it be. Maybe Windows is designed to shutdown with external drives permanently connected and I guess that was what the question was.

 

[atomicWAR]

Windows is supposed to be fine with external USB drive attached during shutdown...in experience though issues can pop up. Usually a drive not showing up on reboot is the most common issue. Easily fixed by pulling and reinserting the USB wire. Generally you should be fine for the most part. You won't lose data or anything of that nature, unless your actively transferring during shutdown but then it wouldn't matter if it was external/internal. It would still happen.

 

[kol12]

Sounds good to me. 😉