Any method to prevent external HDD powering down?

[Ruru]

The title says it all. I have an old WD Green 2TB drive in an external Kolink USB3.0 case. Sorry that I can't find it's product page so this page is Finnish: https://www.jimms.fi/fi/Product/Show/140113/hdsu3u3/kolink-hdsu3u3

It powers the drive down when it's inactive for a while, which sucks as I have my media there and it takes a while to the drive to spin up when posting a reaction pic for example. And I changed the power settings but it doesn't seem to help.

But I guess that it doesn't apply to external drives..

 

[eidairaman1]

See if the usb controller has software and use WD tools and see if there is anyway of turning that off via the firmware (Hitachi Did it)

 

[Ruru]

See if the usb controller has software and use WD tools and see if there is anyway of turning that off via the firmware (Hitachi Did it)

Alright, thanks. I'll check from BIOS soon that are there anything power down related, and I'll download that software. I hope that it works when having the drive in an enclosure.

 

[Regeneration]

WD Green series have a stupid head parking feature.

Search online for WDIDLE3, put it in a bootable USB with MS-DOS, and boot from it.

If I remember correctly, the command should be "wdidle3 /d" to disable it.

 

[eidairaman1]

Alright, thanks. I'll check from BIOS soon that are there anything power down related, and I'll download that software. I hope that it works when having the drive in an enclosure.

Yeah try the mobo bios then usb power state on each controller/port in hardware properties

 

[Ruru]

WD Green series have a stupid head parking feature.

Search online for WDIDLE3, put it in a bootable USB with MS-DOS, and boot from it.

If I remember correctly, the command should be "wdidle3 /d" to disable it.

But I wonder does that work when the drive isn't connected to the computer internally.

Damn @eidairaman1 , the WD utility doesn't recognize the drive. I guess it's because of the enclosure.

 

[eidairaman1]

But I wonder does that work when the drive isn't connected to the computer internally.

Damn @eidairaman1 , the WD utility doesn't recognize the drive. I guess it's because of the enclosure.

Yeah hook it up directly and try

 

[Ruru]

Yeah hook it up directly and try

Damn, I don't have any spare SATA ports as I have 6 SSDs (4 connected to the motherboard, 2 to a PCIe SATA controller card).

 

[MarsM4N]

You could also try your luck with CrystalDiskInfo (AAM & APM Settings).

There is also a old thread on TPU. Did read only the first page, don't know if it works.
I know AAM setting is working, because I did it back in the days to my WDGreens.

 

[Ruru]

You could also try your luck with CrystalDiskInfo (AAM & APM Settings).

There is also a old thread on TPU. Did read only the first page, don't know if it works.
I know AAM setting is working, because I did it back in the days to my WDGreens.

Damn, they're greyed out. I guess that it's just the power management of the enclosure which is too aggressive.

 

[eidairaman1]

Damn, I don't have any spare SATA ports as I have 6 SSDs (4 connected to the motherboard, 2 to a PCIe SATA controller card).

Take 1 out and plug it in

Damn, they're greyed out. I guess that it's just the power management of the enclosure which is too aggressive.

View attachment 255450

That for sure Reminds me of the IBM/Hitachi tool

 

[Ruru]

Take 1 out and plug it in

Is that setting permanent if I try to do it with connected to the motherboard?

 

[MarsM4N]

Damn, they're greyed out. I guess that it's just the power management of the enclosure which is too aggressive.

View attachment 255450

Yes, for HDD settings it needs to be connected directy to the MB, with no (enclosure)controller between.

 

[Ruru]

Yes, for HDD settings it needs to be connected directy to the MB, with no (enclosure)controller between.

Ah, that explains. I'll try that later when I manage to take the HDD out of the enclosure. Thanks

 

[Regeneration]

But I wonder does that work when the drive isn't connected to the computer internally.

Damn @eidairaman1 , the WD utility doesn't recognize the drive. I guess it's because of the enclosure.

Never tried it with USB enclosure. But if it doesn't, plug it via SATA and then do it. It should be a permanent setting.

 

[Ruru]

Never tried it with USB enclosure. But if it doesn't, plug it via SATA and then do it. It should be a permanent setting.

Alright, I'll try that later. Thanks!

 

[eidairaman1]

Is that setting permanent if I try to do it with connected to the motherboard?

Yes because the tool accesses the HDDs controller firmware bios chip to make the change

I did this on a 60 GB hitachi laptop Drive back in 2007 along with a 100GB unit.

 

[Regeneration]

Yes because the tool accesses the HDDs controller firmware bios chip to make the change

I did this on a 60 GB hitachi laptop Drive back in 2007 along with a 100GB unit.

WD don't have a utility to adjust APM/AAM rather than WDIDLE3 for these Green drives.

The general WD HDD software is pretty much useless and just offers scanning for bad sectors (aka Data LifeGuard garbage).

WD doesn't offer a useful utilities like Hitachi Drive Feature Tool, or Samsung ES Tool to fuss around with the drive or its SATA settings.

There is another utility that can be used to adjust these flags from the firmware: HDAT2, but i'm not sure if it stays permanent.

Windows 8+ and its drivers like to sniff around and automatically adjust these power saving flags.

 

[eidairaman1]

WDIDLE3 appers to be modeled after IBM/Hitachi Drive Feature Tool

 

[thewan]

I have Hard Disk Sentinel. I tested with three external USB 3.0 HDDs I have on me, one Seagate, one Toshiba and one more is a Seagate inside a third party USB 3.0 enclosure. I can change the APM for all three drives, through USB and using a Hub too. You might want to try this software. It is not free, but there is a giveaway version today at GOTD, although it is for an older version. There is also a trial version on their website.

Hard Disk Sentinel - HDD health and temperature monitoring

Monitoring hard disk health and temperature. Test and repair HDD problems, predict disk failure.

www.hdsentinel.com

Spot potential problems before they result in an irrecoverable data loss. It is FREE on GOTD today!

Detect Hard Drive Issues Before Catastrophe Strikes. With Hard Disk Sentinel, you'll always have a complete overview of your hard disk drive's health, so you can...

www.giveawayoftheday.com

 

[95Viper]

I used this a while ago... it worked.

You can try Victoria (Site is in Russian) (Program has a choice of languages)
Support for external USB drives

Obtained a passport and S.M.A.R.T.-parameters of HDD and SSD via USB, which allows you to learn all about hard drives hidden in USB boxes. 90% of USB-SATA bridge models are supported, and this figure will increase.
Added cache management via USB, SMART tests via USB. Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) also works on USB drives: software control of the level of acoustic noise by changing the speed of movement of the heads.

Changing the Factory HDD Configuration NEW

Many HDD drives support the "Device configuration overlay" (DCO) function with which you can disable unnecessary functions, turn on previously turned off or change the available volume. Thus, you can improve information security or adapt the hard drive to non-standard conditions.

The Victoria program is able to access the non-volatile DCO memory, display its contents in a convenient form, edit it at your discretion and write it back to the drive.

You can, also, download it from MajorGeeks

 

[The red spirit]

Device manager, click on it and disable "allow suspend"

 

[pryinglynx.digital]

Was wondering when I'd see a victoria link. Sweet software.

 

[thewan]

You can try Victoria (Site is in Russian) (Program has a choice of languages)

Nice find. HDD diagnostics software are so rare and CDI sometimes does not have the features you are looking for. But I would avoid using this software, Victoria, unless you understand the Russian language. This is because although the software has an English interface, many of the functions are probably directly translated from Russian. A lot of them don't make any sense in English, and some of them are pretty confusing. To make matters worse, the Help Documentation is not translated to English, and the website is in Russian which is hard to read even through something like Google Translate. If you don't understand a function, you might end up unintentionally messing up your drives and consequently, your data stored on those drives.

PS: I'm not against using any country's software, unless they are proven malicious. So this is nothing against Russian software. It looks good and I would recommend it if I could understand it properly, but I can't even navigate around it properly with the software having an "English" language interface option.

Edit: I poked around abit more and realized that the software hasn't been updated for a while, and it doesn't support newish SSDs. I have a Crucial P2 and it doesn't detect the temperature of that SSD for example. It would be nice if it was kept up to date too.