A couple powered hard drive questions.

I just got my first hard powered hard drive. Is it ok to connect and disconnect from my laptop as long as I keep it plugged in and powered up. I have a tendency to take my laptop with me a couple times a week and I won't be needing the hard drive.

A random side thought. Can I plug this powered hard drive into my wireless router and use on my home network? The main purpose for this hard drive is for editing video and some video storage. If I can clear enough room off my laptop hard drive, then I will just use it for storage and edit off the laptop.

Thanks in advance.

It depends on what hard drive you got, and what configuration your router has. Some external drives are USB 3/firewire only. Others have ethernet. If your HD has ethernet, then that's the most straight forward way of connecting to a router (and it's usually faster then wifi). Some external HDs also have wifi, in which you can setup first from your computer with your USB connection...and then your HD will stay connected with the router through wifi. If you have a home that's wired with ethernet, and your router is in a different location in the house, you can connect the HD to an ethernet hub switch. Hub switches are inexpensive boxes that let you distribute other ethernet devices (be it HD, media device, computer, etc) from one ethernet outlet in the house. There are also connected wifi modules for extending the range of wifi vs just your router.

murtaugh wrote in post #18524354
I just got my first hard powered hard drive. Is it ok to connect and disconnect from my laptop as long as I keep it plugged in and powered up. I have a tendency to take my laptop with me a couple times a week and I won't be needing the hard drive.

Plug in, yes. unplug, best to use the "Safely remove hardware and eject media" option and lt the OS disconnect the drive, then you can unplug.

murtaugh wrote in post #18524354
A random side thought. Can I plug this powered hard drive into my wireless router and use on my home network? The main purpose for this hard drive is for editing video and some video storage. If I can clear enough room off my laptop hard drive, then I will just use it for storage and edit off the laptop.

Thanks in advance.

Depends, is your enclosure Ethernet or usb capable?

Windows or Mac?

gjl711 wrote in post #18524367
Plug in, yes. unplug, best to use the "Safely remove hardware and eject media" option and lt the OS disconnect the drive, then you can unplug.

Bingo

There are actually two settings in Windows for an external drive. One, the default is basically for "quick removal" which disables write caching to the drive. If a write operastion is finished, after just a few seconds you can just disconnect the cable safely. The other setting is for "better performance" and that enables write caching. When using that setting, it is good to use the "Safetly Remove" option that is found on the PC (often in the tray). This tells Windows to write the cache contents to disk and then flush the write cache.

To view or change the setting, plug the drive in and go to Device Manage. Right click the drive, select properties, click the policies tab and you will see the two options listed. Note you may or may not see an improvement in performance. USB3 drives are pretty fast and in that case you may not see an improvement unless you had a special utility.

After choosing your setting, you can also create a desktop shortcut with custom icon for ejecting drives, memory stick etc by following the procedures at http://ccm.net …eject-usb-storage-devices.