Strange behaviour with an external HD

  • Thread starter Thread starter il barbi
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il barbi

I have an external HD (Western Digital My Book 1 terabyte) connected via
firewire, following its specifications after 10' of inactivity it must enter
standby status by stopping rotation, in the contrary often I realize it goes
on spinning even if I don't access it and surely it becomes more and more
hot. WD says it never will be a damage and the 10' timeout has been foreseen
not to avoid overheating, but to save energy.
Now I carried out some tests with Filemon utility and rather surprisingly
saw a "Query information" command is issued to My Book when I open a
directory on my INTERNAL HD, so since I often work with explorer.exe the 10'
timeout will never expire.
I reported this to WD which obviously said at this point the fault was not
of themselves.
Now this is unsatisfactory and I can't understand why Windows behaves this
way, I just think this is a misbehaviour
any ideas?
il barbi
 
In il barbi typed on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:33:55 +0200:
I have an external HD (Western Digital My Book 1 terabyte) connected
via firewire, following its specifications after 10' of inactivity it
must enter standby status by stopping rotation, in the contrary often
I realize it goes on spinning even if I don't access it and surely it
becomes more and more hot. WD says it never will be a damage and the
10' timeout has been foreseen not to avoid overheating, but to save
energy. Now I carried out some tests with Filemon utility and rather
surprisingly saw a "Query information" command is issued to My Book
when I open a directory on my INTERNAL HD, so since I often work with
explorer.exe the 10' timeout will never expire.
I reported this to WD which obviously said at this point the fault
was not of themselves.
Now this is unsatisfactory and I can't understand why Windows behaves
this way, I just think this is a misbehaviour
any ideas?
il barbi
Click to expand...

I don't believe the Windows Power Options for hard drives applies to USB
or firewire drives. If you are worried about hard drive temperatures,
why are you not running a utility to monitor the drives temperatures?
There are lots of free ones out there. One of the best drive(s) monitor
is HD Sentinel. And it is free as long as you don't register.

http://www.hdsentinel.com/

I don't use standby mode for hard drives anyway. There are two reasons
for this:

1) The computer has to wait to spin up the drive.

2) The old days, this lessened the life of the drive. Probably not true
anymore.

I have three external hard drives. Although they are rarely connected
and running. I tend to use my three 16GB SDHC cards far more. No moving
parts and no spin up delays. And they carry a lifetime warrantee as
well.
 
BillW50 said:
I don't believe the Windows Power Options for hard drives applies to USB
or firewire drives. If you are worried about hard drive temperatures, why
are you not running a utility to monitor the drives temperatures?
Click to expand...
indeed I'm running WD drive monitor displaying the temperature and till now
it has not exceeded 35° but it is working since from only six months and its
size is 1000 GB, you understand...
I have three external hard drives. Although they are rarely connected and
running. I tend to use my three 16GB SDHC cards far more. No moving parts
and no spin up delays. And they carry a lifetime warrantee as well.
Click to expand...
ok but again I'm speaking of 1000 GB...

il barbi
 
In simple terms Windows is merely confirming the disk is still accessible.
Click to expand...
I'm glad it is accessible, but who asked it? I'm working with C:, not with
My Book. It has no sense, moreover it is blocking the standby feature
il barbi
 
In il barbi typed on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:50:00 +0200:
indeed I'm running WD drive monitor displaying the temperature and
till now it has not exceeded 35° but it is working since from only
six months and its size is 1000 GB, you understand...
Click to expand...

Hi il barbi! Oh 35°C is a nice temperature for a hard drive. You
shouldn't worry about hard drive temperatures that low.
ok but again I'm speaking of 1000 GB...
Click to expand...

Yes so true. It was just something to think about. ;-)
 
il said:
"Bob I" <[email protected]> ha scritto nel messaggio



I'm glad it is accessible, but who asked it? I'm working with C:, not with
My Book. It has no sense, moreover it is blocking the standby feature
il barbi
Click to expand...

Many times it is the user who put items like pictures on it that "tie
back" to the user profile.
 
I also have external HD connected to USB. However, i disconnect them
physically ( unplug not USB but energy unit) when I do not have to access
them. Since I use them fort backup, or occaisonal use, it is no problem.
That way it also limits the risk of being infected...
 
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