eSATA HDD

I just bought an external HDD enclosure with eSATA. How do I safely remove it from my computer? All I have on it is music, so I figure as long as my music player is closed, powering off the drive shouldn't be a problem. I know SATA is supposed to be hot swapable, but is there a formal unmounting processes that I'm supposed to do? When I connect the drive w/ USB (it has both connections) I get the "safely remove hardware" thing, but not when I use SATA. I'd leave the drive on all the time, but it gets a little warm and I don't want to shorten its life by leaving it on when I'm not using it. THanks

Just press the switch and power it off

well yea....im doing that...its not bad?

What do you think happens when you turn off computer? Same thing happens. I have wester digital external hard drive, it has a feature that it powers itself off if it is not used for more than 10min. Same as fliping a switch.

uh...when I turn off my computer it unmounts the filesystem and then powers off, at least thats what it says.... I'm just worried cause I know what happens to my iPod when I unplug it when it says not to.