USB Disk Drive - switching off

E

euroDilbert

Registered User
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I bought one of the Aldi Medion disk drives a few weeks ago. It works fine - I use it just for backups.

However, there is no on/off switch for it. So I just turn the power off at the mains when I switch off my PC. I am a little worried that this may damage the drive eventually. Is there some better way to handle this (e.g. some sort of 'shutdown' program).

eD
 
If it has no power supply and it is a USB key it is a solid state memory , no moving parts so it is pretty resistant damage.
Sounds like it is these are usually 2Gb memory or less. There are external hard drives usually 200Gb or more and they would'nt be forgiving.

In any event if backing up it would be safest to ensure everything is completely finished and properly closed and the surest way shutting down the computer.
 
Just to clarify - it's a 250Gb External (USB) Disk drive.
It has a separate power supply - the only way to switch it off seems to be to turn off the power.
 
Switching off the power will have exactly the same effect on the unit as a built-in switch would have, so no need to worry. Many of these components' life expectancy is rated in power on-off hours, so the more you switch it on and off, the shorter its life will be.
 
Probably no need to worry but the safest way of handling it is to look for the "Safely Remove Hardware" Icon which should near the bottom right hand corner of your screen just a bit along near the clock (assuming Window XP here.)
The icon is a green left-pointing arrow over a gray rectangle.
If you left-click on the icon the words "Safely Remove USB storage XXXX" should appear. Select this and a few second later windows will tell you with a balloon message in the bottom right hand corner that it is now safe to remove your device.
 
While your drive is connected:

Start -> My Computer
Right click and choose Properties
Select the Hardware property page
Click Device Manager
Select/expand Disk Drives tree node
Right click on the removable disk drive and choose Properties
Select the Policies property page
Make sure Optimize for quick removal is selected

Once this option is enabled you should be OK. However if you always manually eject (using the Safely Remove Hardware option above) or tend to leave the drive connected all of the time then you could enable the Optimize for performance for better performance.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Clubman - the option to change policies is greyed-out, and set to 'optimise for performance'.

So, I will assume all is OK and will only power the disk up when I actually want to do a backup.

eD.
 
Are you sure that you're choosing the properties for an external USB connected drive and not your internal hard drive? Is this on a work or home PC (the former may have a domain policy preventing certain options from being changed at all or other than by administrators)?
 
Hi Clubman - you're right - when I scrolled down I saw the other drives. I thought I was on the correct drive as I had right-clicked on the removable one.

It was already set to Optimize for quick removal

Thanks.

eD
 
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