Computer Guru's, Does my external Hard Drive go to sleep if its still blinking?

@ozzy seems like unplugging and plugging back in for playback sessions would be the same as spinning down and spinning up for playback sessions, and therefore not reduce any risk if your concern is with mechanical degradation causing a failure. Keeping the disk spinning non-stop is the way to avoid that (only to suddenly be surprised by a head crash the first time you spin down and back up).

Unless what you're seeing is that even when the Lumin is sleeping, the hard disk is constantly spinning down and up again.

I guess I probably wouldn't worry about it too much, especially if you have a backup. I'm not sure there is any hard data on what sort of sleep/idle vs. spin duty cycle is optimal but hard drive controllers and disks should handle music playing activity cycles very well. Also don't let it get too hot.

nekoaudio,
Thank you. I think for the night I will unplug the hard drive. Just to be safe.

ozzy

Ozzy, you're imagining a problem where one doesn't exist.  You've backed up your data and you've backed up your backup, so stop worrying about whether the light is on.  If the light really bothers you -- put some dark tape over it.

onhwy61,
It’s not the light, its whether or not it shortens the hard drive lifespan.
The hard drive costs close to $200. And, though I have other back ups, if one of them needs to be put into action, I would need to buy another HD and copy the files for back up duty. (which takes quite some time). After all I have 4TB+ of HR music on a 8TB HD.

ozzy

Whether it runs 24/7/365 or you turn it on and off daily won't make a statistical difference regarding hard drive failure.  Hard drives are robust, but they will eventually fail.  There's a plethora of software that diagnoses and monitors your hard drive's health.  Every now and then run a test on your hard drive.  It may actually prevent or at least warn you of problems.  As long as you have have multiple backups you should be okay.  BTW, it takes less than a day to transfer 4Tb from drive to drive.  Good luck.