Is it alright to always have an external hard drive connected via usb to the the Xiaomi Mi Box S? The Android TV Box doesn't have a proper shut down option so whenever I "turn off" the box, the attached hd is still on when I'm about to power off my entire home theater system. Isn't that bad for the hard drive?
Why not purchase a NAS and build your own Media Network ?
Unless it's truly ancient or a complete rock bottom in terms of quality sort of brand, the drive will have firmware that spins the drive down when it isn't needed for something. Basically modern hardware is smart enough to mostly take care of itself unless you're doing something like moving it around all the time while in operation. Heck, even then sometimes!
It's actually worse than being powered on. The HDD spins up for a short while then turns off. At least that was the case for me so I always disconnected it at night.I eventually stopped using Mi Box, and this was one of the main reasons.
I have mi box 3 with wd passport that's been plugged in about a year in continuum. No problems so far.