I have set the power option to power off the HD after 30 minutes of inactivity. Would this include an external HD? I use the external drive for less than an hour per day for a backup. William Lockie

No. Removable drives are not considered hard drives as far as power options. Although, I don't recommend setting your power settings to turn off the HDD at all. All those stops and starts and stops and starts and stops and starts aren't good for the device. "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

I recommend you remove the external completely if there is no power on/off switch. If the external a 2.5" or 3.5"?

Jennifer SUMN and OtheHill are both right as rain on this. The worst thing you can do is turn off and on the C drive (hardrive) as it will cause excessive wear and tear and over heating problems with the drive. For the USB drive it is just the opposite. Turn off the drive or remove it till it is needed. There is absolutely no reason for it to be running all the time. It is the disadvantaged who habitually elect Democrats on the belief of personal change--- yet they remain disadvantaged.

The external should be on a power strip of it's own. Turn it off when not in use. The computer also should be powered down on a power strip along with all the wall warts on that same strip when not in use. The power features are OK but do not completely eliminate energy usage. No one leaves their TV, car, or particle accelerator on all day out of fear it will wear out. At the price of energy not only in dollars but in earth terms, you should reduce your energy footprint. Power strips can help protect against lightning strikes to some extent. Wall warts are really bad for energy. Seems every computer has 8 of them plugged in. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10

I partially disagree with those against spinning down a hard drive after inactivity. I think it depends how one uses the computer but I know for me, if I am not going to be at the machine for longer than 10 minutes, chances are I'm not gonna be near it for a few hours at least, therefore having the hard disk power down after 10 minutes saves power and wear and tear. Why have it spinning round for hours/days on end when it's not doing anything? Medion MIM 2080 Toshiba T2130CT Macintosh Performa 450 All working wonderfully.