How to run external drives w/ mac mini

Hi, I recently bought a mac mini and I have two external hard drives hooked up to it. One for time machine and the other for photos.
When I looked up this topic and did a search I found conflicting answers but I know so little about this...maybe I just don't understand.
Here is the question: should I leave the external hard drives hooked up 24/7 even through restart etc... or am I supposed to unplug them? Unplugging seems like it defeats the purpose of time machine. On the other hand I don't want to ruin any equipment. What is the standard practice?
Thanks.

I'll vouch for the 'get hot'. As in play a dvd for an hour and then take it out hot. Who needs a heater unit with multiple drives going?
I generally set the Time Machine to OFF and leave it there. Just before and after I add or subtract something significant, I hit Command key and the dock's Time Machine Icon together and choose the backup now function. Now I have a record of Before and After the event. (I also keep a physical log book of what events were changed day/time so if I need to turn the clock back to a specific event I know where to go rather than hunt and peck.)
ps. the less you let Time Machine make a backup any time IT feels like it, the longer your MB space will last.
Also, if you can keep your Time Machine backups and other storage saves to just before you are shutting down your system anyway, you can just turn off the drives after the computer is shut down. I learned to do this because my firewire Western Digital MY BOOK drive would only go to sleep mode otherwise even with the computer off.
Message was edited by: KathleenTarget

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