• External Usb Sleep Indicator For Macbook Pro

I have an external usb hard drive on which I clone my mac's hard drive. I have it on a clock timer. It turns on about 30 min. Before the backup process starts and turns off roughly 30 min. After the backup process has completed. I always thought that I was prolonging the life span and reducing the risk of data corruption of my drive with this course of action. However I was wondering if this is the best practice.

External Usb Sleep Indicator For Macbook Pro

I heard somewhere (can't remember where) that external usb drives don't 'suffer' under being on standby all the time - it actually is better for them and the stored data. What is the best practice on this topic? Can I read up on this somewhere? Googling did not really help. Thanks PS: please omit any power conservation aspects - I realize that using less power is better.:-).