External Hard Drive (re cooling)

Does anyone know what external units shut the hardrive down when it's not in use? I have a Linsys Network Storage Linkthat does it and will let me connect two USB HD drives to it, although I only have one at present + 16gb Flash Drive. It's a bit slow because I'm using wireless. I also have a couple of Cooler master Hard Drive Enclosures that I connect to the computer when backing up, but they don't shut the hardrive down..... seems a bit pointless having a harddrive running when it's not being used?

shim

Looks like they've dropped the crippled World Book Edition?

shim

Nope those are networkdrives link
With those you can also plug in an extra external harddisk.
What do you mean with crippled, Shim?

The WD My Book Essential link turns itself on and off with your computer. The home editions link goes into standby after 10 mintues of no use.

Sorry it seems like I'm really promoting Western Digital here but I only have a My Passport so I've no idea how the My books are in use.

My 250Gb Buffalo DriveStation died a spectacular death within a few months, and they didn't replace under warranty even though it had sat on a desk, unmoved and uncovered, for its entire life.

They are advertised that you can access your data from anywhere in the world.... but it's not very clear that they won't let you access any multimedia files etc. So about all you can access is Text Files You also need to use special software which can only be installed 5 times. Here's one site that describes how to hack it.

It's good to see that they turn off after 10 mins... overheating shouldn't be a problem because you don't use them for long enough. Most WD drives run cool anyway. It also means they last longer by not running all the time the computers switched on.

shim

Ah okay but can't you set them on a VPN and access them like that, I've no idea how they work but that might be a solution I think or not?

The only thing that I don't like about the WD is this link

Right first of all thank you guys for helping me out.
After reading all comments, I think I am looking at:

WD My Book Essential (usb only)
WD My Book Studio (+ with fire wire)
or possibly
WD My Passport

Now, one more question if anyone can answer for me:

I have noticed (just!:roll that I have a firewire socket on the front of my pc tower. It states it is Firewire IEEE 1394.
I have noticed that on the WD My Book Studio it has USB 2.0 & FireWire 400/800 eSATA connections - which I presume will be a helluvva a lot faster file transfer rate that the plain old USB.
Will my Firewire IEEE 1394 be compatible with it? (I dont understand the 400/800 eSATA bit)

I am beginging to think firewire wd be advantageous in time saving, as I usually do a weekly backup, which is straight copy of 'My Docs' which usually takes about 45 mins for 75GB of data to an internal USB HD.

Thanks
Lilly

PS) just noticed ..damn.. the studio is formatted for Apple, thats a bummer.

You really need to consult your motherboard manual. It is probable that your IEEE 1394 header is not Hot-Pluggable and doing so can burn out the controller IC and damage the motherboard. USB2 however is normally Hot-Pluggable at the rear. There was a problem with certain chipsets Hot-Plugging in the front... something used to short out, but I would expect that to have been fixed on recent computers.

You need a special outlet socket for eSata Stefan has already posted a picture of what it looks like. It would probably be worth putting an eSata 3Gbits card in if you buy an external drive that supports it. Should be at least twice as fast as USB2.

shim