What is the power consumption like on this? Are the hard-drives spinning 24/7 or can you set them to spin down after inactivity?
621567
Andrew, I am not sure if there is a 'sleep' feature, maybe Seagate Support can weigh-in on this one.
621568
I haven't noticed an increase on my electric bill and haven't measured electricity usage specifically for this device. It does go into a sleep mode when not in use. When we are going to be gone or won't be using the computers for a while ii usually turn off the power supply for this and the rest of my network peripherals.
621569
I have mine connected to the home network for the entire family to use for back up storage, from how it behaves - I can only assume it is not spinning when there is now pending activity. Initial access time is way longer then once you have the drive directory open; and on occasion despite having the drive mapped to the desktop, the auto backup software I use will stop and alert that the selected destination for the backup is not available - which I then resolve by opening the directory manually (a bit of a delay) then everything is happy again. but the aproduct info doesn't mention that specifically. It also appears to take a while to initially gain access to the drive from outside the home network which sort of reinforces my thinking that it shuts down when ot being actively polled from somewhere on the network
621570
Like most hard disks these days, the disk in this device enters sleep mode after a few minutes. This causes a slight delay when accessing it after the timeout. The power consumption is interesting - I received one with a 2 amp 12VDC power supply, and the device wouldn't start up. Once I replaced that with a 4 amp power supply, the hard disk spun up and the device started. Even 4 amp at 12VDC is negligible in terms of a home's power consumption, though, and as the disk spins down I should think the average power drain is minute.
730633
Not sure if I understand the question but there is an on off switch. I have 7 external drives and they're all off unless I'm using them.
1010214
I have one that I leave connected to my computer constantly, and I rarely turn it off. The hard drive only spins up when it's in use, so if you don't use it much, heat isn't an issue. And as long as you are in a temperature-controlled room that stays below 85 to 90 degrees, it shouldn't matter how much you use it. A fan is only necessary if the ambient temperatures is very hot.
2173429
Yes. You can set this in the Tools>Power Management option of the configuration. It has specific options to power down the drives after 5/10/15/20/25/30 minutes, or 1-5 hours.
42404
Hopefully I understand your question, to make sure, I'll answer it in 2 parts. 1. Yes, the drive will "stay on" in the sense that your computer will be able to "see" the drive at any time it is plugged into the hub, the same as if you plug the drive directly into the computers USB port . 2. No, the drive won't necessarily keep spinning continuously. Hard drives (including USB hard drives) will go into a resting mode if they are not being called upon to "do" something by the computer. After a period of time, usb hard drives will go into an inactivity mode to save power and wear and tear on the drive (so from that standpoint, no, it won't stay on "constantly" draining power. However, as soon as the computer "asks" them to do something, they will power back up pretty much instantly. Hopefully that answers your question well enough. Cheers!
1175422
This is up to the OS power management settings. I have a hard disk that can spin down on both eSATA and USB 3.0 interfaces.
75176
I have two of them and love them. I believe the power button is binary: either on or off. However, I do know that drives do power down when the unit is powered on but the computer is sleeping. And they spin back up correctly when the computer wakes up.
2106652
Ron....no, the hard drive is a plug-n-play, no external power source needed.
475150
yes, my goes into a "sleep mode" when not in use after about a minute or so. On the front are a row of blue lights indicating the hard drives are in use. When in the sleep mode they are not lite but when processing they are scanning with blue lights. My 4 hard drives serve as independent and are not tied as one large hard drive. I have three 2 TB and one 3 TB in my case. Works well for me. Never trust any hard drive........I back up with at least two external back ups. I have four external hard drive from WD & Seagate just so I do not loose data. Using the cloud would be out of the question for me.Hope this helps.Bill M. yes, my goes into a "sleep mode" when not in use after about a minute or so. On the front are a row of blue lights indicating the hard drives are in use. When in the sleep mode they are not lite but when processing they are scanning with blue lights. My 4 hard drives serve as independent and are not tied as one large hard drive. I have three 2 TB and one 3 TB in my case. Works well for me. Never trust any hard drive........I back up with at least two external back ups. I have four external hard drive from WD & Seagate just so I do not loose data. Using the cloud would be out of... » Read More yes, my goes into a "sleep mode" when not in use after about a minute or so. On the front are a row of blue lights indicating the hard drives are in use. When in the sleep mode they are not lite but when processing they are scanning with blue lights. My 4 hard drives serve as independent and are not tied as one large hard drive. I have three 2 TB and one 3 TB in my case. Works well for me. Never trust any hard drive........I back up with at least two external back ups. I have four external hard drive from WD & Seagate just so I do not loose data. Using the cloud would be out of the question for me.Hope this helps.Bill M. « Show Less
2245376
Could someone who has one of these drives post the size of the power port on the back? I am interested in getting one of these with an external power adapter, and would like to be able to order simultaneously.
2159680
I don't think so as it's not labeled as being that. If it does power down I haven't noticed it. Latency isn't really much of an issue any more - smaller disks spin up very quickly. Mine is doing a TimeMachine backup as I type. The drive is silent and the case is only slightly warm to the touch.
1010213
You should be good to go. I don't keep it up all the time, but I have left it connected for weeks at a time. The hard drive is out in the open so it won't really overheat, and there is a power switch on it, so you can turn it off but leave it all setup when the drive is not in use.
17350
No on off switch, but goes to sleep 15 minutes after its used. Mine is connected to a Synology server via USB 3.0. It backs up every night at 1 am, so have not see it actually "on" in quite a while. Back ups run just fine and the log shows they are all there daily with no errors. Now the reason it is asleep is due to a setting in the Synology software. I could have it on all the time, but why? If I manually access the drive thru the Synology server it comes right up with no issue, AND is fast! Thats the best part. I would buy another if I needed one, no problem.
905425
I have 5 Canvios of different sizes, including this one. Each one will stop spinning and 'sleep' after a few minutes of inactivity which is great since no one wants any disk spinning 24/7. It usually takes several seconds to spin them back up and the activity lights are good indicators. Hope that helps a little.
1250852
I keep it just plugged in all the time regardless of what I do with the (desktop) computer. The drive seems to be performing well and I think I've had it more than a year. I'm using it for local file sync'ing. It's usb so you should not need to mount or unmount.
1881941
I never tried to do this ... I use it to work and some times to play a few games, and It never turned me down. I still love the time it takes to turn on and off, and I don't use a SSD drive.
2010724
I have two of them for my servers. Both units are functioning well. I have one unit that I used to clear out some 200 disk and the unit is still working well.