Western Digital USB drives sleeping

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1

Greetings,

My external, Western Digital, USB based drives go to sleep, by default, after a few minutes. This is a big no-no for Chia.
This is the case for WD labeled drives, as well as g-technology drives (a WD brand).

I have Seagate and LaCie (a Seagate brand) drives, too, and they do not go to sleep.

I could find no elegant solutions on-line. By elegant, I mean a way to tell the drive to not sleep.
So I called WD, and they insisted that Windows tells the drives when to sleep.

I told them that my Seagate drives never sleep. But that was met with a repetition of “Windows blah, blah, blah”.

They have no software tool that can issue a change of settings to their drives.

I checked every conceivable power related setting that I could find in Windows, and all are set to maximum performance and zero power savings.

My work-around was to write a keepalive.bat script that writes a few byes of data to each drive. The script then sleeps (via Windows “timeout.exe” command) and repeats. This works. But I should not have to do this.

Has anyone else had this “sleep” (or power savings) issue with WD / g-technology drives?
How are you dealing with it?

Thank you.

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WD Discovery
WD Drive Utilities

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image

4

I clicked on all the USB entries in Device Manager and unchecked to save power options.

5

Right click every drive–>properties–> hardware–>properties–>change settings–>policies–>click the “better performance”.

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image

I dont have the Better performance button :frowning:

7

Sorry That shows up only on the USB connected disk drives :rofl: :rofl:

8

I have been in that dialog box. It does not affect the sleeping of the WD drives.
You’d think it would. But WD somehow thwarts that effort.

9

Why are you folks not listening? Get WD software and use it. It will solve the problems.

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10

That feature is for data read/write performance. It is unrelated to whether or not the drives goes to sleep.

11

You quoted two software packages, in your first comment:

  1. WD Discovery
  2. WD Drive Utilities

How did you determine that the above tools would solve the problem that I posted?

Please explain the functionality of each of the above tools that you recommended.
I am asking, because I am keeping my Chia PCs clean of all non-essential software.

Western Digital’s web site glosses over their functions with generalizations.
I could find nothing conclusive with a web search.
I could find no videos that showed either of them having anything to do with my issue.

So please let me know how you concluded that both of the above tools would solve my issue.
I am assuming that you are using those tools, and that is how you concluded that you should have me use them.

Thank you.

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wd sleep timer
wd sleep timer702Ă—902 24.4 KB

Discovery is just useful.

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“Discovery is just useful”?
In what way? I do not know what you mean.

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It appears that you are using WD Drive Utilities for your WD “easystore” drives.

I noted in my comment that all of my WD drives and my g-technology drives (a WD brand) go to sleep.

I am asking questions (see next paragraph), because this is for Chia farming / harvesting. I need 100% of my drives to never sleep.

Are you using g-technology drives?
Is your WD Drive Utilities compatible with your g-technology drives?

Thank you.

15

Look, they are not mine. You need to do a bit of your own research to get exactly what you ask. I’m not trying to brush you off, I gave you good information and what they do. Go to https://www.westerndigital.com/ and you’ll find support for whatever there is available. Get whatever tools you want/need and use them for whatever products you have. Good luck.

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16

The ultimate sleep settings are in the BIOS.

You have to turn both USB and HDDs to Never Sleep mode by changing the BIOS settings.

Re-boot to BIOS and change the settings there.

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17

Look?
I wrote that I needed tools to keep my g-technology drives from sleeping.
If not for my due diligence, I would have followed your bad instructions.

First you had me installing WD’s Discovery software, which has zero to do with this issue.
Next, you had me installing WD’s Utility software, which does not fix my g-drive issue.

The point of offering someone help is to guide them towards a solution that they reported.
You should not have them install software that does not fix their issue.

Then, when you realize that you were steering the customer down a dead end, you cop an attitude.

Because of your suggestions, I spent a good deal of time researching everything that your posted as a solution. And you state that I should do a bit of my own research. That is what I did (see my original comment). Plus I researched what you wrote, which would have resulted in me installing closed source code, from WD, on my Chia machines, and I wrote that I will not be installing any non-essential software on my Chia machines (the software would be essential only if it actually fixed my issue).

Every point that I clearly spelled out, you ignored.

You also wrote to others that chimed in:
“Why are you folks not listening? Get WD software and use it. It will solve the problems.”

You accused folks of not listening, when it was you who was not listening.
And the part “It will solve the problems” was wrong.

So do not get offended by being asked questions by someone who chooses to be careful and not blindly follow a stranger’s directions.

I did not post my comment, or ask you questions, to upset you.
I posted my comment, and asked you questions, to ensure that I did not compound my problem.

I believe that you were trying to help. And I appreciate your effort. But you need to see the entire picture, and not lose your cool because your directions are being verified to actually remedy the issue.

Cheers!

18

Your windows is fu…ed up.
I have 24 western digital elements usb drives and no sleeping problems.

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19

Good idea.
When my current plotting jobs complete, I will boot to my BIOS, and pray that the BIOS fix will remedy this issue.

I have my doubts. Why?
When Fuzeguy recommended various WD software, I researched his recommendations.

WD’s web site gives nearly useless descriptions of the software, and I found nothing useful from searching the web or looking for videos. So I called WD, and I asked for details that are specific to my issue.

It appears that their software will remedy all of their USB drive’s sleeping issue, except their line of g-technology drives. According to the person that I spoke to, there is no way to stop the g-drives from sleeping (short of what I am doing, which is looping a tiny job to keep the drives busy every few minutes).

But I will try the BIOS option, and hope for the best.

Thank you.

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