I have a 500GB WD My Book connected to my Vista PC via Firewire, and I use it frequently. It works fine, but it can take around 15-30 seconds for the drive to spin back up out of power save mode, and during file operations related to the drive, applications freeze until it has had time to spin back up.
I would ideally like to control the amount of time that elapses prior to it spinning down (because I assume the power save mode extends the life of the drive as well as saving power). WD says the spindown delay is set at 10 minutes and is not configurable.
So, does anyone know of an application that will periodically write a small amount of data to the drive so it won't spin down? Thanks in advance.
2007-08-13 04:49:05 · 4 answers · asked by nonagon 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
Note: Windows does NOT provide power management options for external drives through control panel.
2007-08-13 05:02:09 · update #1
Also, I'm pretty sure you cannot control settings for an external device such as a Firewire hard drive through system BIOS.
2007-08-13 05:08:00 · update #2
Unfortunately this is supposed to be a clever move by WD and cannot be changed.
We had exactly the same problem for our back up drives, by the time the back up was run the drives had spun down so the back up failed.
Unfortunately WD are no help!!
We created a .txt file on each drive and scheduled a command file to run and write to the drive every 9 minutes
Are you familiar with writing cmd files?
I have to go now ,apologies, will try and pop back later.
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Ok I've got 10 minutes
:: Keep Drive Alive
now >>f:\alive.txt
........is the command we use, obviously this will change depending on your drive letter, Choose file>Save as>Keep alive.cmd
Create an "alive.txt" folder on your drive.
Create a scheduled by Start>all programs>accessories>system tools>schedule tasks in the "run" part type C:\keep alive.cmd (the actual path of your command).
And enter the time frame you want the command to run at IE 9 minutes, (this will be done on "Schedule">advanced).
Hope i've made a little sense there, I've confused myself
2007-08-13 05:08:55 · answer #1 · answered by A Little Knowledge Is Dangerous 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
external hard drive spins 10 minutes inactivity happening
2016-02-02 10:14:30 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
go into the systems bios and disable the power saving mode.. or setup for a longer period say 60 minutes
2007-08-13 05:02:35 · answer #3 · answered by Carling 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Go to Control panel and find Power Options. Pull it up and you'll see settings for power.
2007-08-13 04:56:42 · answer #4 · answered by Richard F 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋