What are the dangers of leaving my external USB drive mounted?

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

I have an external USB drive that I back up to.  Right now, I turn it on, 
mount it, back up, unmount it, then power it down.  This is to minimize 
the likelihood of anything happening to my server also taking down my 
backup drive.

I am contemplating either leaving the drive on and just mounting it when I 
need it, or leaving it mounted.  Both computer and drive are on a UPS.  
What would the added danger be if I leave the drive mounted?  I'ts ext2, 
IIRC.

PS- I am contemplating leaving it mounted because mounting it in a script 
is a little hard.  This is SuSE 9.0, so I'm not guaranteed it will always 
come out as the same device name.


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DDDD   David Kramer         david at thekramers.net       http://thekramers.net
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DKK D  Martial arts, politics, war... they are all just ways 
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