Western Digital USB drives sleeping

Even if your external drives are correctly configured they will still sleep if sleep mode is not turned off in the PC BIOS for both USB and HDDs.

Good to know. Thank you.

By the way, since this is a BIOS thing…
Do you know if this issue would exist if I were running Linux? Would I have to tinker with the BIOS if the OS was a Linux distro?

I am sort of fed up with Windows. When I have the strength, and figure out the networking, etc (Linux is a learning curve for me), I would love to ditch Windows and replace it with one of the Linux distros (so many good distros from which to choose!).

Cheers!

BIOS is hardware, OS is software running on top. BIOS always rules.

True. But if the USB drives are hard-coded to sleep, they will not care what is in the BIOS.

The drives might simply be programmed to spin down after X minutes of inactivity – unless the BIOS pings the drives (but I never heard of that).

If all goes well (and I can devote the time), I will have an answer within 24 hours.

I have two WD My Book USB drives connected to a Win10 PC, and they both stay awake. My BIOS doesn’t have any options to control this. I disabled Turn off hard disk in my Power Profile (set to 0), selected Better performance in Device Manager under Disk drives/Policies, and disabled Power Management in Device Manager for the USB Mass Storage Devices, USB Root Hubs and USB eXtensibe Host Controllers to which the disks are connected.

I am just reporting my experience, not giving recommendations to the OP - seeing as recommendations from other members weren’t well received :roll_eyes:

You’re welcome.

Thank you for your help.

By the way, it was not a matter of the other person’s help not being well received. It was that he lashed (for lack of a better verb) out at others and me for not blindly accepting his recommendations. He had an impatient “just do it” attitude.

It is proper for follow-up questions / confirmations to be asked, as well as for folks to respond, respectfully to those follow-up questions / confirmations (or choose not to respond). But when responding, it should be respectful.

And I do not want this comment to be taken by him as a continuation. It is water under the bridge.

Understood. You’re right, water under the bridge, I shouldn’t have brought it up. :pensive:

Re the topic, I don’t know why your WD disks fall asleep and mine don’t. But come to think of it, I have a USB docking station that also puts disks to sleep no matter what I do. It’s probably baked into the controller of some enclosures, but not others.

If all else fails I found another peep has created a solution to your problem.

Be well.

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Which WD drives are their g-technology drives?

Just a different brand by wd.

On windows I use this

Set it to write a file and read a file every 60 secs.
Works great got a combination of WD elements and Seagate and no issues.

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My elements don’t sleep, I don’t use these tools, just windows settings.

The following link has a mix of WD and G-Drives, spanning two pages:

The G-Drives are the g-technology drives.

Aren’t G-ABC just (sturdy) enclosure lines? Are HDs inside labeled as WDC or something else? Even if considering them a special G-line, the USB->SATA chipset is the same as in other enclosures. So, at the end of the day, those are just WD drives.

Was bored so I had a look.

G-Drives have Daisy Chain capability, high performance ports, and HDDs.

For reference, the G-Drive Pro daisy’s up to 5, has dual Thunderbolt 3 ports, and its HDD is an, “Ultrastar™ Enterprise-class Hard Drive Inside
For all your demanding workloads and mission-critical content, you can rely on the power and enhanced reliability of the Ultrastar™ enterprise-class 7200RPM hard drive inside.”

At $850 USD for the 18TB the price is not ridiculous and most of the reviews are high positive.

I prefer drive arrays over externals, but if I was in the market for an external drive the G-Drive line would be a contender.

My comment was just to state that there is no physical HD named G-Abc, so no point of being fixated on that. Those are straight WDC drives (I think at some point were Hitachi, before WDC acquired both of them). Also, if any fix needs to be that USB/SATA chip related, it will again be a common chip, not G-Xyz one. A quick check with Crystal Disk Info should reveal the exact HD label.

Understood and all good. I was just resonding to your question.

The G-Drives are not just sturdy enclosures.

This recent thread offers what I consider to be a far better option at least price wise:

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If you need Thunderbolt connectivity, then that cost is a significant premium over their standard drives. But that is the case for all Thunderbolt enabled drives from all manufacturers.

The standard 18TB USB G-Drives sell for $549.99 (no Thunderbolt). I have no information on what drive it contains.

They will write at a steady 240 MB/s. Reads are roughly the same, too.

One of the features (if you will) of the G-Drives is that you can stack them to the moon. So if you have a real-estate shortage on your desk (or under your desk), you just pile them one-on-top-of-the-other.

Just note that you will then need a fan to keep them cool. If stacked without a fan, they will get very hot, and you will probably shorten their life span. But a very light breeze with a small fan, on its lowest setting, will keep them cool.

Any of these fans will keep a stack of 10 G-Drives cool:

(and they run quietly, on their lowest setting, and can be aimed in any direction)

The double fan is what I went with. I found it on Amazon for $39.99 (but they are not currently available).

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