is it bad to download directly to portable hard drives?

Using anything ages it but if you need to do it you have no options.

kenny2023 said:

I almost always download everything to my system hard drive first, before any further action.

But now, my system SSD is running out of space and I am not able to free up its space at the moment.

If I download something directly to my portable hard drive which is an old type hard drive, and not SSD, and it may take a few hours to finish, will it age the portable drive faster by doing so?

Not really as you are only downloading data once.

In the end, it all comes down to criticality e.g. if the portable drive contains critical backup data, then downloading extra data could lead to earlier failure and loss of critical data. Truth is nobody really knows.

However, mechanical drives like to be spinned up now and then (bit like a car needs to be run now and then) to keep in good condition, so writing data now and then is not likely to be detrimental.

Probably the most important thing is not to fill the drive so much so that it gets severely fragmented which will increase wear and tear. I would not go beyound 90% full to leave some headroom for temporary files.

In the end, there is no right or wrong answer but I advise you check the drive status, and the most crucial advice is to ensure really critical data is backed up in two places (e.g. the cloud (such as onedrive) is good as a second backup - do not let the boring recidivist anti-cloud brigade tell you otherwise).

If you're going to download anyway, it's better to download directly to he external drive. If you download to the SSD internal drive and then to the external drive and then delete the file on the SSD you are making the SSD life shorter.

kenny2023 said:

Hi, I am not talking about backup, I have my backup solution, and the files I download usually aren't important, but I just want to know if downloading (writing?) to a portable drive for a few hours and do it as a habit, will it cause consistent heat to it and age the portable drive faster?

This is like saying if I drive my car now and then, will it affect life of my tires.

Well answer is yes but nobody knows the impact - all drives fail ultimately. All you can do is monitor drive condition.

The impact of writing to an external drive is no different to wrtiting to an internal drive.

If you are really worried, buy a second drive.

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