Users are increasingly buying 3.5 inch external hard disks as backup devices for desktop and notebook computers. These are also being used to extend the system storage. Once connected, it’s easy to forget that its power supply continues to draw power, even when nothing is being read or written to the disk. Only a few models have sophisticated power-saving mechanisms; Seagate devices are quite commendable. Most devices do not have a ‘Power’ button. The 3.5-inch hard drives need 12 Volts and therefore they have an external power supply unit (power brick). But 2.5-inch drives require just 5 Volts and they can draw power from the PC via a USB cable.
Since they draw power from the PC’s power supply unit, the 2.5-inch drives will switch off automatically when the PC shuts down. Drive manufacturers are now incorporating features such as the reduced RPM low-power idle mode. This is seen in some Hitachi drives and Western Digital’s Greenpower-branded disks such as the 1TB capacity WD10EACS, which has a slower 5400rpm fixed rotation speed for reduced power consumption.
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