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This drive, attached via firewire, to a Windows 2003 (W2K3) is not powered up when the machine is rebooted, so it is not recognized after boot. This could present a real problem for remote usage.

According to the Western Digital website, the spin down of their drives can not be disabled.

I am trying the drive attached to USB to see if that makes a difference. The initial test shows that if the drive is attached via USB, then it will be recognized on boot up. The WD Button manager is working properly when the drive is attached to USB, but did not work when the drive was attached by firewire.

The drive worked better when attached to USB.... But, after about 24 hours of fairly heavy SQL Server 2005 access of a database on the drive, the drive disappeared. I found the drive with it's front light blinking on and off in one second intervals, some kind of error indication.

So this drive has major strikes against it:

  • Problems being reliably detected after reboots (except maybe putting on USB interface solves that)
  • Some kind of disappearance issue under load

I started researching SQL Server Speed Test Performance Network Attached Storage Vs. External USB Hard Drive. I was surprised to find the NAS performed as well for display of a large table from this database as the WD USB drive! Perhaps the table display in SQL Management Studio was mostly CPU or memory bound.

Q: Do Western Digital external hard drives spin down after a certain amount of inactivity time? How can I disable this feature?

A: The external hard drives listed below will spin down (enter into power saver mode) after 10 minutes of drive inactivity. Once the drive is accessed again, the drive will exit from the power saver mode and spin back up.

Please Note: This is a permanent feature of the external hard drives and cannot be disabled.

  • MediaCenter
  • Dual-Option Combo
  • Dual-Option USB
  • WD Essentials USB
  • WD Essentials NetCenter
  • WD My Book Essential Edition
  • WD My Book Premium Edition
  • WD My Book Pro Edition

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Labels:
harddrive harddrive Delete
firewire firewire Delete
usb usb Delete
hard hard Delete
drive drive Delete
digital digital Delete
western western Delete
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1 Comment

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  1. Apr 16, 2008

    Anonymous

    In the Device Manager I checked the properties of the drive. Under the Policies Tab I checked "Optimize for performance" rather then for "Quick Removal". This seems to have fixed the problem of not being recognized on reboot.

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