[hrhr]

I am looking to buy a 1 TB external hard drive (seagate/WD/Maxtor). But I am confused between external HDDs that use power and the ones that don't use power. A few of my techie friends have advised me against buying a portable HDD and their reasoning is that since a 1TB 5400/7200 HDD will draw a lot of power from the laptop, even normal usage will reduce the life of the battery and it may even make the battery unstable. I have been googling a lot to verify this but have not found anything useful.

Please help

Thank you.

[Dellinsp531]

How often are you going to be using the external?

If you are going to be using the drive on the go, than get the one that gets power from the USB. When you do not need it, disconnect it so that it does not use your laptop's battery. It will use some power when you are using it.

If you are going to be using the drive at home, than get the one that gets power from the outlet.

[LincolnSpector]

I stick pretty much exclusively to portable drives--the ones that are powered by the USB connection. In the long run, they use less power, both because they're designed to be more efficient, and because you're not going to leave one on when it doesn't need to be on.

For instance, at the end of my workday, I plug in my external drive and launch Cobian Backup. Then I get up and walk away. I have Cobian set to shut off the PC when it's done. Since the drive is getting power from the laptop, that gets shut off, too. With a non-portable drive, I'd have to either wait for the backup to be finished (so I could turn off the drive) or leave it on all night.

I suppose if you're going to be running the laptop on battery all of the time, and have the external drive in all of the time, it will be a major drain on the battery. But what's the point of running your laptop on battery if you keep a drive plugged into it that needs AC power?

Which brings up the question: What are you going to use it for? If you do plan to keep the drive plugged in all of the time, I'd recommend upgrading your internal drive instead.

Lincoln

[hrhr]

Thank you for the responses.

To clarify further, I would mostly store movies, mp3s and docs. I would love to buy the portable hard drive because of the convenience of carrying it around easily.

I am only worried about the impact (if any) that it may have on the laptop's battery due to extended usage. I would, of course, have to connect the laptop to AC power if I am using it non-stop, for say 6+ hours.

My concerns are:
- Over the long run, would this have any impact on the long term life of the laptop battery?
- Would it make the laptop battery unstable?
- I would also use the hard drive to plug in to the TV or the home theater via USB. In these cases, the power supply would not be a problem, but would it reduce the life of the ext drive?

Not being a techie, I do not know if these concerns are uncalled for. Please help me.

[LiveBrianD]

LincolnSpector, on 09 January 2012 - 08:13 AM, said:

I stick pretty much exclusively to portable drives--the ones that are powered by the USB connection. In the long run, they use less power, both because they're designed to be more efficient, and because you're not going to leave one on when it doesn't need to be on.

For instance, at the end of my workday, I plug in my external drive and launch Cobian Backup. Then I get up and walk away. I have Cobian set to shut off the PC when it's done. Since the drive is getting power from the laptop, that gets shut off, too. With a non-portable drive, I'd have to either wait for the backup to be finished (so I could turn off the drive) or leave it on all night.

I suppose if you're going to be running the laptop on battery all of the time, and have the external drive in all of the time, it will be a major drain on the battery. But what's the point of running your laptop on battery if you keep a drive plugged into it that needs AC power?

Which brings up the question: What are you going to use it for? If you do plan to keep the drive plugged in all of the time, I'd recommend upgrading your internal drive instead.

Lincoln

With my WD Elements drive (which is a 3.5" desktop drive, with an external power adapter), if I put the PC in sleep, the drive also goes to sleep/spins down. If I unplug it, it spins down. It also shuts down from inactivity btw.

[LincolnSpector]

hrhr, on 09 January 2012 - 12:27 PM, said:

Thank you for the responses.

To clarify further, I would mostly store movies, mp3s and docs. I would love to buy the portable hard drive because of the convenience of carrying it around easily.

I am only worried about the impact (if any) that it may have on the laptop's battery due to extended usage. I would, of course, have to connect the laptop to AC power if I am using it non-stop, for say 6+ hours.

My concerns are:
- Over the long run, would this have any impact on the long term life of the laptop battery?
- Would it make the laptop battery unstable?
- I would also use the hard drive to plug in to the TV or the home theater via USB. In these cases, the power supply would not be a problem, but would it reduce the life of the ext drive?

Not being a techie, I do not know if these concerns are uncalled for. Please help me.

I don't see it doing significant permanent harm. Of course, if you have it plugged in all of the time, it will effect battery life between charges. It may also contribute slightly to the inevitable wearing out of the battery, but not much.

But as I said before, if you plan to have it plugged in all of the time, and not use it for backup, upgrading the internal drive makes more sense. One less thing to carry, and it won't effect the battery life.

Lincoln

[smax013]

hrhr, on 09 January 2012 - 12:27 PM, said:

Thank you for the responses.

To clarify further, I would mostly store movies, mp3s and docs. I would love to buy the portable hard drive because of the convenience of carrying it around easily.

I am only worried about the impact (if any) that it may have on the laptop's battery due to extended usage. I would, of course, have to connect the laptop to AC power if I am using it non-stop, for say 6+ hours.

My concerns are:
- Over the long run, would this have any impact on the long term life of the laptop battery?

Not really...other than it might cause you to use more cycles of your battery quicker because it will cause your battery to drain faster when you use the USB bus-powered drive while only using the battery...but this assumes that you would use your computer the same amount of time and just have to recharge it more frequently. The reality is that it likely will have negligible to no impact.

Quote

- Would it make the laptop battery unstable?

It shouldn't, but there could be some fluke that causes problems so I won't say never. The end result is that it should be fine unless something REALLY strange happens. I use a bus-powered drive all the time to backup my laptop while on battery only.

Quote

- I would also use the hard drive to plug in to the TV or the home theater via USB. In these cases, the power supply would not be a problem, but would it reduce the life of the ext drive?

This you might have a problem with...it will depend on how much power the USB port on the TV supplies. If it is does not supply enough power, then it would not work. Many portable USB drives, however, will also have the option to use a power adapter in addition to using bus-power. So, if you choose one of the portable bus-powered drives that can also use a power adapter, then you will be covered if it cannot draw enough power from the TV's USB port.

Quote

Not being a techie, I do not know if these concerns are uncalled for. Please help me.

End result is go with a portable USB drive unless you will basically ONLY use it at home (i.e. one location or few locations). If you want it to be "portable", like your laptop, then get a portable bus-powered drive.

[LiveBrianD]

Yep. I use a desktop external hard drive, but it sits on top of my tower 99% of the time, though I occasionally take it places (when working on friends' or grandparents' computers). However, wherever I am, I have a nearby outlet, so the extra capacity of a desktop drive is better in my case. btw many drives have a Y adapter for the USB connector, in case you need two ports to get enough current. I'm not sure if that'll work with a TV though. You could plug it into a powered USB hub and plug that into the TV when needed though.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 27 January 2012 - 03:44 PM