Question about External Hard Drives

[HopelessNoob]

I have a 2TB hard drive that has to plug into an outlet. Is it bad to leave it on 24/7 even though it's just sitting idle?

 

[DeadRam]

The hard drive probably stops spinning when idle so it should be OK. I have a 2 TB Hitachi drive and it completely shuts down when the device it's connected to gets turned off. The HD is connected to a media player.

 

[HopelessNoob]

I'm pretty sure it spins while it's plugged into the power (it has no on off switch) regardless of whether or not I'm reading or writing