External HDD - okay to leave connected?

[Robscure]

Is it okay to leave an External Hard Drive connected to the PC for long periods of time or should you remove it?

[razer121]

I would say it is fine, there built to be used as an external, not a temp right? I do it with mine all the time and no harm has come to it as of yet!

[0iD]

I have a number of Ext HHDs connected at all times, hasn't seemed to do them any harm at all.

[Splash]

I guess it rather depends onw hat you're using them for. If it's as a backup, and you get a power surge which kills your PC, there's a reasonable chance your external disk could take a hit too. In that case I'd be looking to only connect when backing up, and then disconnect and store away somewhere. If just being used as external storage, I see no reason why not.

[Robscure]

Thanks for the responses.

I use it to keep an Acronis backup of my two hdd's as well as to store my music files, I usually keep it plugged in, but I've had all my data lost before in my previous flat, I am not sure how that happened either. Now I was having some trouble booting my pc and got a BSOD and some random issues like that which I've been troubleshooting and was checking if it could be my ext hdd causing some sort of crash... but since having it unplugged for a while and since many of you say you leave yours connected, then I think I can rule the ext hdd out as a problem.

I'm worried that I'll have to do *another* clean install.