[SOLVED] Leave Externals On?

[Rockslydes]

Hello.

Is it wise to leave external hard drives such as the Seagate 2 terabyte hooked up to the computer? So basically does it degrade the life of the drive itself if its left in the usb port? I see the blue light on but that mean its running or does it go to a sort of quiet mode until I access it?

I just don't want to leave these in and one day they have burnt themselves out if that's possible.

 

[CountMike]

Hello.

Is it wise to leave external hard drives such as the Seagate 2 terabyte hooked up to the computer? So basically does it degrade the life of the drive itself if its left in the usb port? I see the blue light on but that mean its running or does it go to a sort of quiet mode until I access it?

I just don't want to leave these in and one day they have burnt themselves out if that's possible.

External HDDs are same as internal but with added USB or other interface, what goes for internal, goes for external drives. Some things that can make external HDDs more vulnerable is that because of enclosure they may heat some more and when running there's more chance of bumping them and heads may crash ruining the drive. While not powered on, they are way more resistant.
They are meant for temporary storage/backup and should be treated as such.

 

[sizzling]

One of the drives attached to my XBox One X has been permanently powered for years as the XBox still powers it even when the XBox is off itself. Still works fine.

However if you have any data you cannot afford to loose you should have a backup. Any drive can fail without warning.