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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
Hello!
I canīt find any information about the standby-mode of the Western Digital My Book - harddrive! Can it be turned off by software? I could only find a lot of reviews talking about a standby-mode after 5 minutes! But I donīt want to turn of the HDīs motor! (for a longer life of the HD) I also couldnt find any information about the automatic power-on-mode of the HD! Can the HD be configured this way that it doesnt power on every time the computer boots? And can it be turned off manually? Thanks a lot, Andy |
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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
"bxf" wrote:
I canīt find any information about the standby-mode of the Western Digital My Book - harddrive! I could only find a lot of reviews talking about a standby-mode after 5 minutes! But I donīt want to turn of the HDīs motor! (for a longer life of the HD) For what it's worth, WD says that although spinning up and down repeatedly DOES present the drive with greater wear and tear than if it's continuously spinning, this is true only up to a point, and the drive's design is such that it is expected to spin down several times a day. I think I saw this somewhere in the WD FAQ. First of all, thank you for your explanations! Its good to hear that the spinning up and down doesnt harm the HD but I think that there is a standard HD inside the mybook! (Do you know how to open the plastic case?) Yesterday I bought the 250GB-MyBook with USB2.0 and Firewire400 and connected it via Firewire. I am very satisfied with everything but I cant understand why WD doesnt deliver a tool with which users can prevent the standbye-mode or change the time for this mode! Do you know a tool which sends (reads) a command to the HD every one minute so it doesnt go in standby? One more question: Do you know how the read the S.M.A.R.T.-Status via Firewire/USB2.0? It seems that this isnīt possible! :-( Andy |
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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
Andreas Keppler wrote:
"bxf" wrote: I canīt find any information about the standby-mode of the Western Digital My Book - harddrive! I could only find a lot of reviews talking about a standby-mode after 5 minutes! But I donīt want to turn of the HDīs motor! (for a longer life of the HD) For what it's worth, WD says that although spinning up and down repeatedly DOES present the drive with greater wear and tear than if it's continuously spinning, this is true only up to a point, and the drive's design is such that it is expected to spin down several times a day. I think I saw this somewhere in the WD FAQ. First of all, thank you for your explanations! Its good to hear that the spinning up and down doesnt harm the HD but I think that there is a standard HD inside the mybook! It's not that I expect some "special" HD in the MYBOOK, its just that WD are expressing their philosophy about wear and tear, to alleviate concerns users may have. (Do you know how to open the plastic case?) I haven't tried. Yesterday I bought the 250GB-MyBook with USB2.0 and Firewire400 and connected it via Firewire. I am very satisfied with everything but I cant understand why WD doesnt deliver a tool with which users can prevent the standbye-mode or change the time for this mode! I think we are supposed to view this feature as a benefit, so there would be no reason for us to turn it off. If you're concerned about the drive spinning up and down repeatedly, and if you don't use the drive except during specific activities, why not simply REMOVE it? Do you know a tool which sends (reads) a command to the HD every one minute so it doesnt go in standby? Firstly, the drive goes into STANDBY after 10 minutes, so you wouldn't have to access it every minute. You can use Control Panel Schedule Tasks to invoke, every 9 minutes, a dummy script that resides on your MYBOOK. Although at first it looks as if one can't schedule a task to run every n minutes, it can in fact be done, and on XP you will have the opportunity to specify the interval as you define the task. Also, you can look here (works on XP too): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/226795/EN-US/ I've just done the above, and my dummy script is in fact an empty file I've named Dummy Access.bat. The only unpleasant side-effect is the flashing of the Command Prompt screen every time the task is executed. There may be a way to prevent this, but I don't know of one yet. Also, you'll want to clear C:\Windows\SchedLgU.txt once in awhile (you'll have to STOP the Task Scheduler to do this, and then restart it). One more question: Do you know how the read the S.M.A.R.T.-Status via Firewire/USB2.0? It seems that this isnīt possible! :-( My MYBOOK included WD Diagnostics software, which enables me to view the SMART data on the WD drive as well as my fixed HDD. Your drive is "higher level" than mine (mine is the Essential, whereas you have the Premium (USB & FW), I believe), so I'd be surprised if your package did not include this software. In any event, I think it's available for download from the WD site. |
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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
bxf wrote:
Andreas Keppler wrote: "bxf" wrote: I've just done the above, and my dummy script is in fact an empty file I've named Dummy Access.bat. The only unpleasant side-effect is the flashing of the Command Prompt screen every time the task is executed. There may be a way to prevent this, but I don't know of one yet. It appears that if you give your empty file a VBS extension rather than ..BAT, there is no "flashing Command Prompt" screen. |
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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
"bxf" wrote in message ups.com
Andreas Keppler wrote: "bxf" wrote: I canīt find any information about the standby-mode of the Western Digital My Book - harddrive! I could only find a lot of reviews talking about a standby-mode after 5 minutes! But I donīt want to turn of the HDīs motor! (for a longer life of the HD) For what it's worth, WD says that although spinning up and down repeatedly DOES present the drive with greater wear and tear than if it's continuously spinning, this is true only up to a point, and the drive's design is such that it is expected to spin down several times a day. I think I saw this somewhere in the WD FAQ. First of all, thank you for your explanations! Its good to hear that the spinning up and down doesnt harm the HD but I think that there is a standard HD inside the mybook! It's not that I expect some "special" HD in the MYBOOK, its just that WD are expressing their philosophy about wear and tear, to alleviate concerns users may have. (Do you know how to open the plastic case?) I haven't tried. Yesterday I bought the 250GB-MyBook with USB2.0 and Firewire400 and connected it via Firewire. I am very satisfied with everything but I cant understand why WD doesnt deliver a tool with which users can prevent the standbye-mode or change the time for this mode! I think we are supposed to view this feature as a benefit, so there would be no reason for us to turn it off. If you're concerned about the drive spinning up and down repeatedly, and if you don't use the drive except during specific activities, why not simply REMOVE it? Do you know a tool which sends (reads) a command to the HD every one minute so it doesnt go in standby? Firstly, the drive goes into STANDBY after 10 minutes, so you wouldn't have to access it every minute. You can use Control Panel Schedule Tasks to invoke, every 9 minutes, a dummy script that resides on your MYBOOK. Although at first it looks as if one can't schedule a task to run every n minutes, it can in fact be done, and on XP you will have the opportunity to specify the interval as you define the task. Also, you can look here (works on XP too): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/226795/EN-US/ I've just done the above, and my dummy script is in fact an empty file I've named Dummy Access.bat. The only unpleasant side-effect is the flashing of the Command Prompt screen every time the task is executed. There may be a way to prevent this, but I don't know of one yet. Also, you'll want to clear C:\Windows\SchedLgU.txt once in awhile (you'll have to STOP the Task Scheduler to do this, and then restart it). One more question: Do you know how the read the S.M.A.R.T.-Status via Firewire/USB2.0? It seems that this isnīt possible! :-( My MYBOOK included WD Diagnostics software, which enables me to view the SMART data on the WD drive You might wanna tell babblebot I and babblebot II about it. They repeatedly say that it can't be done. as well as my fixed HDD. Your drive is "higher level" than mine (mine is the Essential, whereas you have the Premium (USB & FW), I believe), so I'd be surprised if your package did not include this software. In any event, I think it's available for download from the WD site. |
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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
Folkert Rienstra wrote: "bxf" wrote in message My MYBOOK included WD Diagnostics software, which enables me to view the SMART data on the WD drive You might wanna tell babblebot I and babblebot II about it. They repeatedly say that it can't be done. Unfortunately, I can't take a screenshot of the output, but I assure "them" that it works - unless the utility is pulling numbers out of the air. The utility is called "Western Digital Data Lifeguard for Windows - DLGDIAG for Windows". I suspect (not sure) that anybody can dowsnload it from the WD site. |
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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
bxf wrote:
bxf wrote: Andreas Keppler wrote: "bxf" wrote: I've just done the above, and my dummy script is in fact an empty file I've named Dummy Access.bat. The only unpleasant side-effect is the flashing of the Command Prompt screen every time the task is executed. There may be a way to prevent this, but I don't know of one yet. It appears that if you give your empty file a VBS extension rather than .BAT, there is no "flashing Command Prompt" screen. It appears that executing an empty script, even if it resides on the USB drive, does not prevent it from spinning down after a few minutes. I assume Windows must be caching the script or something, hence avoiding an actual access to the drive. I'm going to create a script that will allocate and write to a file on the drive ("M" in my case), and it looks like this: Option Explicit Dim objFSO, objUSBFile Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set objUSBFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile("M:\Dummy Access.txt", True) objUSBFile.WriteLine("This is a dummy file") objUSBFile.Close Wscript.Quit I'll create a Scheduled Task that will invoke this script every few minutes, and I expect this should keep the drive active. I'll try it tomorrow. |
#9
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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
Andreas Keppler wrote:
"bxf" wrote: I canÂīt find any information about the standby-mode of the Western Digital My Book - harddrive! I could only find a lot of reviews talking about a standby-mode after 5 minutes! But I donÂīt want to turn of the HDÂīs motor! (for a longer life of the HD) For what it's worth, WD says that although spinning up and down repeatedly DOES present the drive with greater wear and tear than if it's continuously spinning, this is true only up to a point, and the drive's design is such that it is expected to spin down several times a day. I think I saw this somewhere in the WD FAQ. First of all, thank you for your explanations! Its good to hear that the spinning up and down doesnt harm the HD but I think that there is a standard HD inside the mybook! (Do you know how to open the plastic case?) Yesterday I bought the 250GB-MyBook with USB2.0 and Firewire400 and connected it via Firewire. I am very satisfied with everything but I cant understand why WD doesnt deliver a tool with which users can prevent the standbye-mode or change the time for this mode! Do you know a tool which sends (reads) a command to the HD every one minute so it doesnt go in standby? One more question: Do you know how the read the S.M.A.R.T.-Status via Firewire/USB2.0? It seems that this isnÂīt possible! :-( Andy For the benefit of those trying to help you.... If you let the drive spin down, how many times in a day would it have to spin up as you access it? Do you plan to keep it spinning 24 hours a day? How long do you expect the drive to run before failing? Have you considered that the spinning drive will be running much hotter than if it is allowed to spin down? Have you considered that the enclosure is already designed to give the best reliability? |
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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions
craigm wrote:
Andreas Keppler wrote: "bxf" wrote: I canīt find any information about the standby-mode of the Western Digital My Book - harddrive! I could only find a lot of reviews talking about a standby-mode after 5 minutes! But I donīt want to turn of the HDīs motor! (for a longer life of the HD) For what it's worth, WD says that although spinning up and down repeatedly DOES present the drive with greater wear and tear than if it's continuously spinning, this is true only up to a point, and the drive's design is such that it is expected to spin down several times a day. I think I saw this somewhere in the WD FAQ. First of all, thank you for your explanations! Its good to hear that the spinning up and down doesnt harm the HD but I think that there is a standard HD inside the mybook! (Do you know how to open the plastic case?) Yesterday I bought the 250GB-MyBook with USB2.0 and Firewire400 and connected it via Firewire. I am very satisfied with everything but I cant understand why WD doesnt deliver a tool with which users can prevent the standbye-mode or change the time for this mode! Do you know a tool which sends (reads) a command to the HD every one minute so it doesnt go in standby? One more question: Do you know how the read the S.M.A.R.T.-Status via Firewire/USB2.0? It seems that this isnīt possible! :-( Andy For the benefit of those trying to help you.... If you let the drive spin down, how many times in a day would it have to spin up as you access it? Do you plan to keep it spinning 24 hours a day? How long do you expect the drive to run before failing? Have you considered that the spinning drive will be running much hotter than if it is allowed to spin down? Have you considered that the enclosure is already designed to give the best reliability? These are all valid points, and correspond to WD's claims that it is not necessarily preferable to run the drive continously as opposed to letting it spin down occasionally. My own "problem" relates to the fact that I use the drive only for specific purposes, but it spins up every time I invoke Explorer, hence I usually just pull out the USB cable and keep the drive off until I need it. It would be more convenient if I could accomplish this with a switch, but, as I mentioned earlier, when using the power button on the drive, the drive will power up when rebooting after a complete shutdown. My efforts regarding the script and Scheduled Task are more for experimentation than anything else. |
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