@Omiid 

Hey

The difference you are experiencing is not unexpected.  When a hard drive USB is connected to a PC its a only accessible to that one PC.  Therefore the PC knows when and if its using it and it can spin the drive down safely in the knowledge that is not required.

When connected in a Server type situation, in this case directly to the Router. It could be asked for access to the drive at any time by multiple devices, therefore it cannot make a decision to spin down the drive and therefore likely never will.  In all server type scenarios this is quite normal, I have 2x synology NAS servers here and the disks only spin down when I tell them too..

Hard drives come with a thing called MTBF or AFR rates (Mean Time to Between Failure  /  Average Failure Rate )  and that is how they will calculate their warranty or lifespan.  Generally most standard USB disks are rated for the following:

• 8760 Power on Hours Per year (52 Weeks 24x7)
• 250 Power Cycles per year (reboots)

So if a company rate the warranty / life for 3 years its 26280 hours with 750 reboots (whatever comes first), obviously the exact metric they use will vary from vendor to vendor but usually something like that.  If you run the disk for 8 hours a day, it should in thory anyways last longer but you are more likely to exhaust the power cycles first..  hope you get the idea

In terms of temperature, I wouldn't be worrying as it depends on a lot of factors.   40/50 Celsius is fairly normal for most and will feel 'warm to touch' but its grand. 

if you are after a drive specifically for long term / constantly online situations look to the NAS range of drives, Western Digital Red for example as these are specifically designed to be online 24/7 for years on end.

Philbert wrote

@Omiid 

 

Hey

The difference you are experiencing is not unexpected.  When a hard drive USB is connected to a PC its a only accessible to that one PC.  Therefore the PC knows when and if its using it and it can spin the drive down safely in the knowledge that is not required.

 

When connected in a Server type situation, in this case directly to the Router. It could be asked for access to the drive at any time by multiple devices, therefore it cannot make a decision to spin down the drive and therefore likely never will.  In all server type scenarios this is quite normal, I have 2x synology NAS servers here and the disks only spin down when I tell them too..

 

Hard drives come with a thing called MTBF or AFR rates (Mean Time to Between Failure  /  Average Failure Rate )  and that is how they will calculate their warranty or lifespan.  Generally most standard USB disks are rated for the following:

 

• 8760 Power on Hours Per year (52 Weeks 24x7)
• 250 Power Cycles per year (reboots)

 

So if a company rate the warranty / life for 3 years its 26280 hours with 750 reboots (whatever comes first), obviously the exact metric they use will vary from vendor to vendor but usually something like that.  If you run the disk for 8 hours a day, it should in thory anyways last longer but you are more likely to exhaust the power cycles first..  hope you get the idea

 

In terms of temperature, I wouldn't be worrying as it depends on a lot of factors.   40/50 Celsius is fairly normal for most and will feel 'warm to touch' but its grand. 

 

if you are after a drive specifically for long term / constantly online situations look to the NAS range of drives, Western Digital Red for example as these are specifically designed to be online 24/7 for years on end.

 

 

Thank you for your reply, but this is a home modem and there is no need for the hard disks to be active all the time.  As in the case of Linksys modems, it is possible to have standby mode for usb HDD.

Is this due to Tp-link modem hardware limitations or weaknesses in the firmware?

@Philbert