mahttew said:
You probably shouldn't shut it off whilst the drive is being written to (I assume that's what Crazymoogle meant). If you really want to switch it off and you have an HD just make sure you put it into standby mode first then flip the power switch and everything should be hunky-dory.
I don't know how much power it uses or what it's actually doing while in standby mode (other than powering the LED). Does anyone know? Does it keep the clock going or something?
The clock tends to stay as long as you don't physically unplug the system - but other stuff, like PS1 filters and DVD settings tend to need the system in standby (or at least, that's how it worked with the first models, I'll have to mess around with the 50001)
The HDD needs time to spin down, empty any active write registers, and basically move into a non-active state, as if you were shutting down a PC. You can manually shut down the system as you want, as most of the time nothing bad is going to happen. But if the PS2 is for some reason writing or reading from the disc, there is a chance of data loss or corruption (this can happen pretty much at random if the PS2 OS decides to cache data). This is why going into standby takes a few seconds more than it would if you had no HDD.
The chances may not be very high, but the side effects are real. Sony warns against this on page 11 of the HDD manual, claiming a possibility of "software or data loss or corruption, or damage to the HDD".
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Easy way for HDD users to go into standby: Load up the Playonline interface (before logging in) and then quit - Playonline will automatically shut down the system.
I leave my system in standby whenever I'm not using it, unless, say, I was travelling or was going to be away from the house for an extended period of time.
