How to correctly use an external hard drive...

[qq107]

I've recently bought a Buffalo Drivestation DDR (3TB). Just like most other external HDs, it requires its own power cord, however, it does not seem to have a power button. so Basically, it's powered on whenever the PC on, and it's powered off whenever the PC is off. Right now, I have it plugged into my PC at all times with the power connected (ie, it's plugged in even after I shut my PC down at night and turn it back on in the morning. I'm not even using the "safely eject" thing before I turn my PC off). But i'm a bit worried...

I have had a bad experience with a portable HD (it was a Maxtor if i recall correctly) 6~7 years back (so i don't know if things are different now). I did the same thing that i am doing now. But one day, when I turned on the PC and accessed the contents stored on the drive, I discovered quite a lot of the files (mainly videos) have become corrupted. I think there might have been a few times when my PC froze and I had to force restart. So that could have been why...

So... my question is... what is the right way to treat my new external HD? I store some pretty important stuff that I need to access regularly, so i don't want to lose any of it. Should I just keep doing what I'm doing now? Will the same thing happen if my PC decides to unexpectedly shuts down? Or should I "safely eject" and unplug the HD whenever i'm not using it? if so, is it better to unplug the USB cable or the power cord?

All help or experience would be appreciated!
Thanks!!

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Power on/off switches are rarely featured on ready-to-use external hard drives. On third-party enclosures yes, but not ready-to-use types.

By default, Windows removal policy for external storage devices is "Optimise for quick removal", which means there is no need to use the "safely remove hardware" feature. Just make sure that the drive's activity light isn't flashing "busy" and you just unplug the USB cable. I've been doing that for years with no harm to the drive, though I echo your experiences with Maxtor external drives - they are terrible and I will never buy another.

I always unplug my 3 external drives' USB cables at the end of the day, mainly because I have to otherwise it adds a good 15 seconds to the boot time next morning. The Hitachi drive doesn't cause this, it's the two WD Elements drives. Apart from that little annoyance they are all working fine after more than 4 years.

 

[hang-the-9]

First, do not store anything you only have one copy of on the external drive. Use that drive as a backup or to move files between systems. If you want more storage space, buy an internal hard drive. Or a second external hard drive.

Since you are worried about losing data from the drive, I am assuming you are not making backups. Which means you are not THAT worried about losing data. If you are worried the drive will crash, make backups. DVD, another drive, cloud storage, BluRay, whatever. You could use gloves and silk cushions to handle the drive and it can still fail for no apparent reason. The only way to prevent data loss is to have backups. And I don't mean a copy of the files on the same drive in a different partition or directory, a different drive. Or two. Or a drive and some DVDs. The more the merrier.

If you do a shutdown on the computer with it, it will disconnect it properly from the system without corrupting anything.

 

[popatim]

^^^ +100