Is it safe to run music live off of an external hard drive that doesn't have a fan?

Question

its a small western digital passport:

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-WDXMS1200TN-Passport-Drive/dp/B000HZGQ9C/sr=8-1/qid=1171772539/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-4705841-3703846?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

is it detrimental to the hard drive to play music off it instead of transferring the music to the computer and then running the songs from the computer?

Answer 1

Hard drives don't get as hot as, say, the processor. If it did get that hot you would think hard drive enclosures would get fans. It is not that much much different than playing music from a video iPod or some other player with a hard drive, which don't have fans either. Just use it externally.