Disconnecting External Harddrive Question

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Sevikins

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Just wondering... is it safe to just turn the external HDD off by pressing the on/off button without doing the "safely remove hardware" thing from Windows? Oftentimes when I turn off my laptop, I always forget to do that, and as a result I just press the button at the back of my exHDD to turn it off... would my drive be harmed if that happens more than once?

Thanks.

Also, a bit offtopic to this, but I didn't want to hijack another's iPod thread, but is it also alright to disconnect the wire from the ipod without ejecting it via itunes or the safely remove hardware feature?

Thanks again all.
 
If your harddrive is in the middle of some kind of file transfer (a read/write operation) and you disconnect it, it can result in a loss of data. In the worst case the file index on your drive can be damaged, which may make it complicated to access all files on the drive. It won't harm your drive physically, though.

I would guess that the same thing can be said about Ipods.
 
I have it on, attached to the laptop, but usually it's idled (because I only access it if I need to find a specific picture, or to listen to music). Would it be alright to outright turn it off when I don't need it?

I usually don't do that, most of the times, I use the safely remove hardware. At times though when I want to turn it off (like if I were to run out of the house), but can't afford to wait an extra minute or two, I get afraid that if I come back, boot it up, there'd be a horrible error on it or something.

I know nothing about exHDDs lol... this is my first. :(
 
If it's idle then it should be safe for the HD.

Mind you, though...operating systems are "asking" all devices whether they are still active ("hey, are you still alive?") on a regular basis. If you are unfortunate, and disconnect the HD in the middle of such an operation, Windows will highly likely crash :happy:
 
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