External USB drives and router

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A few months ago I updated the router to a model with USB share drive option, initially I plugged in a 16GB flash drive - it's quite useful but not that fast to retrieve large files over the network, and because it's not that large I don't use it for example to automatically make a 2nd copy.

I have a 500GB USB powered external drive, it will also run attached to the router, but is it 'inadvisable' to have this attached constantly?
Or does it only spin up when accessed from one of the computers?
I wondered mainly about wearing it out I suppose.
You can't really hear it running.
 
I've had a 640gb drive running off my router for about two years now, hasn't given me any problems so far.
 
I should say it's in a NAS box not a caddy. That's probably overkill as the router most likely acts as a NAS anyway.
 
I wouldn't worry about it.......

It's debatable whether spin up/down cycles actually do more harm than leaving it running. I lean more toward leaving it running.

The single most important factor is temperature, a few degree's too high can reduce the life of a HDD by half. Something the generic "all in one" shop bought external drives have, is very poor heat dissipation.
 
Last edited:
Lyonspride said:
The single most important factor is temperature, a few degree's too high can reduce the life of a HDD by half. Something the generic "all in one" shop bought external drives have, is very poor heat dissipation.
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Bizarrely it is the reverse to what you might expect.

Google did a study 5 or so years ago and came up with this graph:

afr_temp_age_dist.png


(see it in context here: http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-failure-experience/)

The blocks are number of disks at that temperature, the points average failure rates at that temperature.
 
Unusual findings....... But I think the 50 degree limit is slightly hopeful, i've seen shop bought external drives get too hot to touch, that's certainly higher than 50 degrees C.
I've known HDDs inside laptops to reach near on 65 degree's (when used on a lap or soft surface).

My 2.5 external runs most of the day and sits at around 30-40C and that's with a full aluminium case, positioned partially over the top of my PCs exhaust fan.

Commercial electronic components generally have a limit of 70, industrial 85, military 125 and so on into orbit. So I think the boys at Google should have extended their temperature range a little.
 
Google will run in aircon'd data centres - hence the peak around 25-30.

The point is, some heat is good for drives. I have my HDD fans set to come on when temps reach 37 when reported from the SMART settings. I don't have enough drives to make a statistical calculation though :)
 
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