Hi Dan, Joey,
I power mine down completely all the time and it causes me no adverse effects. The only time it does take a few minutes longer to be ready for use is if you have added lots of new media to your Windows Shares or USB \ hard drive \ NAS Drive.
I started using the 5 second off option a while back because my TP Link Power Line Adapters would not go to sleep. It solved the problem in an instant.
Scanning for updates should not be an issue if you turn auto updates off. WD don’t release them that often for it to be a problem and you can always manually search here in the forum.
