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Bon Scott
join:2009-09-12

Bon Scott

Member

Please recomend external HD with NO Sleep mode.

I have some external hard drives that go into sleep mode every 7 minutes. When they turn back on they take about 5 to 7 seconds. It's a pain in the neck.

Can some please recomend an external HD with no sleep mode?

Thank you,
Bon Scott
fsmartin1
join:2002-09-06
Clearwater, FL

fsmartin1

Member

said by Bon Scott:

I have some external hard drives that go into sleep mode every 7 minutes. When they turn back on they take about 5 to 7 seconds. It's a pain in the neck.

Can some please recomend an external HD with no sleep mode?
I doubt that the external drive has anything to do with a sleep mode. There is a power management tab for the USB and network devices, which allows windows to put them to sleep when not in use.

Bon Scott
join:2009-09-12

Bon Scott

Member

said by fsmartin1:

said by Bon Scott:

I have some external hard drives that go into sleep mode every 7 minutes. When they turn back on they take about 5 to 7 seconds. It's a pain in the neck.

Can some please recomend an external HD with no sleep mode?
I doubt that the external drive has anything to do with a sleep mode. There is a power management tab for the USB and network devices, which allows windows to put them to sleep when not in use.
Not true. I have an older Lacie external HD that doesn't go into sleep mode. Those WD MYBOOK externals are notorious for their unadjustable sleep modes.

Cajun Man
Let's Do the Zydeco
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Cajun Bayou

Cajun Man

Premium Member

said by Bon Scott:
said by fsmartin1:
said by Bon Scott:

I have some external hard drives that go into sleep mode every 7 minutes. When they turn back on they take about 5 to 7 seconds. It's a pain in the neck.

Can some please recomend an external HD with no sleep mode?
I doubt that the external drive has anything to do with a sleep mode. There is a power management tab for the USB and network devices, which allows windows to put them to sleep when not in use.
Not true. I have an older Lacie external HD that doesn't go into sleep mode. Those WD MYBOOK externals are notorious for their unadjustable sleep modes.
Well I have the 1TB WD Mybook Elite and in WD Smartware there in Settings, set up drive, there is a option to set sleep timer, I set it to Never and so far the activity light has not flashed like it did before when it went to sleep.

But you'd have to install the smartware software to be able to turn sleep mode off. If one disabled the VCD mode of the MyBook, then you'd have to re-enable it to install the software.

Bon Scott
join:2009-09-12

Bon Scott

Member

said by Cajun Man:

Well I have the 1TB WD Mybook Elite and in WD Smartware there in Settings, set up drive, there is a option to set sleep timer, I set it to Never and so far the activity light has not flashed like it did before when it went to sleep.

But you'd have to install the smartware software to be able to turn sleep mode off. If one disabled the VCD mode of the MyBook, then you'd have to re-enable it to install the software.
What model WD Mybook do yu have?

Cajun Man
Let's Do the Zydeco
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Cajun Bayou

Cajun Man

Premium Member

The Mybook Elite version. It's the one with the fancy display on the front that shows the name of the drive and a graph on how full it is which you get if you install the Smartware software.

I would think the smartware software would have the same options on all Mybook models.

If you install the software, open WD Smartware, click on settings tab, then click on set up drive, the next screen should have a sleep timer button, click it, and then to the right of the picture of the mybook drive should be a drop down window where you set how long before it goes to sleep. The bottom option is Never. The click set timer.

That should turn off sleep mode.

Bon Scott
join:2009-09-12

Bon Scott

Member

This is the version I have: »www.amazon.com/Western-D ··· 00VZCEUI
Bon Scott

Bon Scott to Cajun Man

Member

to Cajun Man
said by Cajun Man:

The Mybook Elite version. It's the one with the fancy display on the front that shows the name of the drive and a graph on how full it is which you get if you install the Smartware software.

I would think the smartware software would have the same options on all Mybook models.

If you install the software, open WD Smartware, click on settings tab, then click on set up drive, the next screen should have a sleep timer button, click it, and then to the right of the picture of the mybook drive should be a drop down window where you set how long before it goes to sleep. The bottom option is Never. The click set timer.

That should turn off sleep mode.
I installed the latest version of Smartware and followed your instructions. The problem is that when I hit the settings tab...the button that says "Set Up Drive"......is unclickable. It's greyed out. What can I do?

Cajun Man
Let's Do the Zydeco
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Cajun Bayou

Cajun Man

Premium Member

Not sure. I know I had done several things after I installed the Smartware, including some reboots. I had also done a few safely remove my book elite. I didn't discover that option till I came across your post and took a look at the smartware software.

If a system reboot doesn't change anything, I'm not sure. Like I said I never messed with it till I came across this post and then I was able to get there. Maybe try safely removing drive and then plugging back in.

Otherwise check with WD and see what they suggest. I've never had Smartware before this External hd and I guess I just got lucky and it worked for me.

This is the one I have:
»accessories.us.dell.com/ ··· A3055237

Bon Scott
join:2009-09-12

Bon Scott

Member

I'm unable to update the firmware here: »www.wdc.com/wdproducts/u ··· tilities

It says no drive found.

Hmmmmm..........

Cajun Man
Let's Do the Zydeco
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Cajun Bayou

Cajun Man

Premium Member

Maybe you got a slightly defective drive. I don't know, I wish I could help, but as this is my first external WD drive and my first experience with the software, I am at a loss for why you are experiencing both Smartwre not configuring the drive or being able to update the firmware.

I haven't tried to update firmware yet, so I don't know if I'll have any luck or not.

I've got to leave for work soon, so I won't be able to check out anything till tomorrow.

Bon Scott
join:2009-09-12

Bon Scott

Member

I thank you for the help. You're the first person anywhere on the web that has come close to helping me. I'm grateful.
Bon Scott

Bon Scott

Member

The thing is too old to use smartdrive. Time to buy another EHD.

Doctor Four
My other vehicle is a TARDIS
Premium Member
join:2000-09-05
Dallas, TX

3 edits

1 recommendation

Doctor Four to Bon Scott

Premium Member

to Bon Scott
Some of the older Seagate models, in particular the gray and black 9Y7685 and 9Y7686 models, were known for doing this. It would get annoying at times when trying to access the drive and having it not respond for several seconds.

I still have two of these, one a 300 GB, the other a 400 GB. Neither are in use any more.

Bon Scott
join:2009-09-12

Bon Scott

Member

My original question still stands however.

Can some please recommend an external HD with no sleep mode?

darcilicious
Cyber Librarian
Premium Member
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR
·Ziply Fiber

darcilicious to Bon Scott

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to Bon Scott
I have two of these: »www.shopping.hp.com/stor ··· home_PDP (HP Personal Media Drives, 1TB) and have never noticed either of them sleeping (though one is directly attached in the media bay, and the other is connected externally).

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

1 edit

1 recommendation

koitsu to fsmartin1

MVM

to fsmartin1
said by fsmartin1:

I doubt that the external drive has anything to do with a sleep mode. There is a power management tab for the USB and network devices, which allows windows to put them to sleep when not in use.
There's 3 aspects of power saving modes which can affect a USB-connected hard disk:

1) The operating system initiating power save on the USB controller or port itself. This would affect any kind of device attached to said port.

2) The OS can support hard disk spindown, which means after X number of seconds where there isn't I/O, the OS can initiate a shutdown command to the disk.

3) The hard disk itself. HDs made during the past 10-15 years support two forms of power saving that is done purely on the disk: PM and APM[1][2]. How each hard disk vendor chooses to implement it, and if it defaults to being enabled or not, is their choice. On most drives you can toggle this capability[3].

Using a 1TB WD Caviar Black drive as an example:

# atacontrol cap ad10
 
Protocol              SATA revision 2.x
device model          WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B1
serial number         WD-WMATV1803888
firmware revision     05.00K05
cylinders             16383
heads                 16
sectors/track         63
lba supported         268435455 sectors
lba48 supported       1953525168 sectors
dma supported
overlap not supported
 
Feature                      Support  Enable    Value           Vendor
write cache                    yes      yes
read ahead                     yes      yes
Native Command Queuing (NCQ)   yes       -      31/0x1F
Tagged Command Queuing (TCQ)   no       no      31/0x1F
SMART                          yes      yes
microcode download             yes      yes
security                       yes      no
power management               yes      yes
advanced power management      no       no      0/0x00
automatic acoustic management  yes      no      254/0xFE        128/0x80
 

Further expansion on #2:

     To spin down a disk after 30 minutes run
 
           atacontrol spindown ad6 1800
           dd if=/dev/ad6 of=/dev/null count=1
 
     While any IO on the disk will arm the timer, using dd(1) on the raw
     device will work in all cases, as when the disk is not opened at all.
     You can check the current setting with
 
           atacontrol spindown ad6
 
     You should not set a spindown timeout on a disk with / or syslog logging
     on it as the disk will be worn out spinning down and up all the time.
 

[1]: »ata.wiki.kernel.org/inde ··· ot_cause
[2]: »www.smarthdd.com/en/apm.htm
[3]: »hddguru.com/content/en/s ··· HDDScan/

Bon Scott
join:2009-09-12

Bon Scott

Member

I ended up getting a couple of Iomega's. They work great.

Anonymous_
Anonymous
Premium Member
join:2004-06-21
127.0.0.1

1 edit

Anonymous_ to Bon Scott

Premium Member

to Bon Scott
said by Bon Scott:

I have some external hard drives that go into sleep mode every 7 minutes. When they turn back on they take about 5 to 7 seconds. It's a pain in the neck.

Can some please recomend an external HD with no sleep mode?

Thank you,
Bon Scott
maxtor you have to use one of there tools to disable it

or you can setup a small "windows swap file" on it and it will never sleep that way
fsmartin1
join:2002-09-06
Clearwater, FL

fsmartin1 to Bon Scott

Member

to Bon Scott
said by Bon Scott:

My original question still stands however.

Can some please recommend an external HD with no sleep mode?
I use an IceyDock enclosure, it can use any SATA HDD. I also have a bracket from gigabyte that has two ESATA ports and a power port that can take any bare HDD. No sleep problems. I only turn them on when I am going to use them.