To leave on or turn off modem. That is the question?

[jackdashack]

I have read so many pro's and con's that I am thoroughly confused. Let me back up. I have Verizon for about 7 years prior to this time around. A short try at Comcast was a fail. I had only 1 modem, the original and it stayed on for those 7 years tirelessly and error free.

So why am I asking now with this new modem?  Well I'd be prone to leave it on too. However, this new D-Link has a neat little feature. You can plug a thumb drive or external hard drive into it so all your devices can share the files on it. So ... does that mean the external hard drive will be on constantly? I'd assume so, can't think of how it would turn off. I don't know if the hard drive could last that long or be as durable as the modem.

 

So my next question is should I turn the modem and hard drive off each night. I've heard all sorts of things like it's not good for it, it has to find new internet data each time, it might not be good data each time.

 

Do you have an opinion? Remember, not the modem alone now, with an external USB hard drive attached. Can it take being on 24/7 for years. 

 

Thanks for any help!  jack  ":-D

[CA3LE]

The hard drive should be fine.  I've left drives on for years without sleeping them... it might even sleep after not being in use for a while.  Listen for it.  I assume you're talking about a mechanical hard drive.  ... As long as they aren't dropped and they stay cool they can spin for many years without any problems... non-stop.

 

Also, don't turn your modem and router off.  You're only wasting minutes out of your day.  They too can usually stay on, sometimes for years without needing to be reset.  Your modem grabs updates in the middle of the night sometimes from your ISP, it can't do that if it's off.  When you power it back on it will get the updates but it wastes your time.  Just leave it on.  I do.  My modems, network, hard drives and computers are on 24/7 and I rarely have issues. Keep your hardware free of dust because that's like a blanket... keep object off the vents.  Electronics can theoretically run forever as long as they don't overheat or get corroded.  A mechanical hard drive and fans obviously will wear out but you can still get many years out of them running nonstop if you buy quality hardware.

 

I tried the usb hard drive thing on my router and it pissed me off.  It was slow and stupid feeling.  Maybe the new routers are better. Is it USB 3.0?  ... if the hard drive sounds active a lot and really hot I'd probably put a flash drive on there instead... otherwise leave the larger mechanical drive.  And leave it on always.  If you're putting important information on it. Make sure you have a solid backup strategy.  It doesn't take much to lose everything... I had a 2TB drive, thought I was safe... kids knocked it off a >1ft tall shelf and broke it. It fell onto shag carpet and still broke it!  You can hear the platters just flying around in there, sounds more like a rattle than a hard drive now.  :-/  ---- but before that it ran without turning off for hundreds of days... with lots of access.

[jackdashack]

As always the info is appreciated. It all sounds good to me. It is an actual USB 40gig hard drive. Of course no fan. I'm not sure just this moment if it is USB 3.0 on the router. It's is one of the latest by D-Link but not sure.  Sorry about the loss of the hard drive, a pain for sure. I only have 17g of data to back up so I am going to keep it on the new win8 pc and on the hard drive. I figure is one goes I have the other. I have paid for online storage for several years and I don't need it, even though it's relatively cheap I think between 3 pc's I can keep the data I want on something to recover. I figure only a person with 1 pc is at risk if you have enough of your own separate hard drive space, why pay them for theirs?

 

Thanks again! jack  ":-D 

[Pgoodwin1]

Yes. As long as electronics are kept cool, they can run a long long time. Some of the newer modems even de-power their ports to save energy, so at night when you're not accessing the LAN ports, the modem is basically just idling and not dissipating much power. Not sure if yours has the energy saver stuff in it, but even if it doesn't, during long periods of doing little work, the thing will have no problem running all night, as long as it's in an area that allows what little heat they generate to rise above it and away from it. As long as there's reasonable air space around it and the air isn't hot, those things should last.