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Safe to ignore "Unsafe Shutdowns"/POR Recovery Count if drive is always ejected first?

Pierrepoint

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Joined
Apr 3, 2025
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Pre-built external hard drives/SSDs from WD, Samsung, etc. tend to completely power down upon ejection or when the host machine is shut down. However, for aftermarket enclosures I have found this to be almost never the case. After ejecting the enclosed drive in Windows, they will just keep it spinning and remain lit up until you cut power to the enclosure. This results in "unsafe" shutdowns for the drives inside, with the "POR Recovery Count" attribute increasing every time you turn off the enclosure.

Should I care about the unsafe shutdowns/POR Recovery Count if the drive is always ejected in Windows beforehand? Can unsafe shutdowns do any harm to SSDs or HDDs other than corrupting data that is being actively written?

Thanks.
 
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