Shark Man

I have a noisy archive drive (internal) that only gets used for back up purposes once a week. So any other time its unused.

So I want to power it down (when idle, it keeps doing a hardware based surface scan - highly annoying). Problem is power saveing doesn't work, it'll randomly spin down and spin up the drive, as well as the main drives - which I don't want powered down.

So I want some utility that will power down just that particular drive and keep the others running. External unit or manual disconnection is not an option.

Anyone got any? (preferbly that work in bpth XP and vistax64

I've tried this :revoSleep but it doesn't work in x64 and it just dismounts the drive in XP - it still stays spinning

Also tried this: SpeedswitchXP but it doesn't have an option to specify a particular drive

There has to be something out there that works? - there is for mac and linux

Sonic'

One of my drives does it on its own, so is no longer reliable for use

Try this software, and record a macro for it

http://hem.bredband.net/noda/ide.zip

I have an external USB caddy that has a small power switch so I can power down the drive, but I know you dont want external

Sonic'

Found this too

turn off hard disk - Club CD Freaks - Knowledge is Power

If you look at the Patent applications or that IDE software above it tells you which registers and pins control the power down, so if you know someone who could write a bit of code you could possibly do it yourself ?

Sonic'

www.xpefiles.com :: View topic - Spindown

Hard Disk Idle Spin-Down Utility

Shark Man

Cheers, going to try that spindown util when I get back, looks a little iffy, but we'll see.

the last link is for linux

I'm amazed that there doesn't seem to be anything much out there

Shark Man

Incase anyone is curious...DO NOT RUN THE PROGRAM IN THE ABOVE LINK!!


Yes, I ignored the warnings in the text, and now all the drives keep spinnning up and down constantly - not healthy at all.

Shark Man

OK, fixed it (system restore). Looks like nothing is going to work, and google has failed me.

So another angle:

How on earth do I stop my archive doing its automated surface scan when its idle?

Its a Western Digital Caviar WD2500KS, and it keeps doing it, totally independant of the OS (it will still do it when the data cable is disconnected). Sometimes it will do it after 5mins being idle, sometimes 20mins. The only way to stop it is to access some data on it.

So its hardware with the actual drive. Its not faulty (well, I don't think it is) as I have another identical drive at work that does the same, albeit not as noticable (noisy environment).

There has to be a way to switch it off, like one can adjust the accoustic controls (its already set to quiet mode ).

Sonic'

See if you get hold of the Western Digital Disk utils, there may well be some software on a hidden sector or two that is causing this

Years ago manufacturers had loads of utils for low level format and all other kinds of stuff you could do with the drives

Doing a surface scan when idle is not a good thing really

Shark Man

Yeah I've looked before, but have since been scouring to see if I missed something. There isn't even a hint or mention anywhere of the what the drive is doing. WD's current crops of utils just off the basic formatting and diagnostics.

Tempted to just bin the drive to be honest.

On another note, something I've overlooked is PM2 (power managment 2).
All I know is it controls the spin-up of the disk - what I don't know is under what exact circumstances that this can be used (barring intial power-up)

I know the drive supports it, not sure about the m/board (southbridge uses a Intel ICH7R controller, and intel doens't seem to mention it supporting PM2 ).

This is starting to be a pain in the **** for what should be a minor issue. (like my jerky 7600GS)

Shark Man

Well, after over a month sat shame with no backup drive.Today I thought I'd give it another go

D/L'd a fresh copy of Revosleep, and after a few failed attempts (needs to be run "as administrator") it works!

So now the highly annoying and constantly ticking Western Digital drive can be shut up 99% of the time when its not being used (just used for backup and as a emergency boot drive incase my RAID 0 fails).

Silence is golden

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

I have to admit, if I was using a backup drive I would ALWAYS have it in an external caddy (mine is).

If you have a PSU blow (for example) and it surges the power and potentially blows the controller, you're stuffed.

Also, the disk will be in use and will wear (I know the MTBF is huge but still).

Personally I would buy a caddy and fit the drive to it... although external drives are so cheap now you may find it better to buy new.

The bottom line is: you are taking your OFFLINE backup away from the environment that may fail.

Shark Man

As I said, NOT an option.

Critical stuff is kept on off system. The main purpose of it is as a backup boot drive should the RAD array fail, and storage of non-critical data nothing more.

Personally, I never use a hard drive as a sole means of backup..caddy or not.