Eject external HD before shutdown? Conflicting advice.

Hi all. My first post. Hooray!
Anyway, having searched this forum and other websites there seems to be conflicting advice as to whether one should eject an external HD before the computer is shutdown or not. I have a Western Digital My Passport Essential and according to WD's knowledgebase I am supposed to eject my external HD before I shut down:-
Knowledgebase Answer ID 976 ( http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=976 )
"Question:
What is the recommended shutdown procedure for a Mac with a USB or FireWire drive installed?
Answer:
In some cases, shutting down the system without properly unmounting the drive results in data corruption. If the OS stops the device while data remains in the drive cache, data can be lost or file system damage can occur. To avoid possible data corruption, Western Digital recommends that FireWire and USB drives be properly unmounted from the Mac OS prior to turning off the system.
To properly unmount the drive, simply drag the drive icon to the trash. This will assure that all data is properly cleared from the drive cache before the drive is removed. At this point the FireWire or USB data cable can be safely removed and the drive and Mac system can be powered off."
I really do not want to jeopardise my backed up data on the external HD, so which advice should I follow?
Many thanks.
Resali

Welcome to Discussions! What took you so long???
I have always dragged the hard drive icon to the trash, then shut it off, before shutting my computer down. I have received too many warnings that "a device was improperly removed, data corruption may have occurred" or something similar, to ignore the advice.
In addition, updating your system with a firewire drive attached can cause problems, I remove all peripherals before any update.
So, in short - eject the external before doing anything with the internal computer, such as shutting down or updating.

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