Energy Star turns off external hard drives? iMac usb 2.0?

In message <fmoore->
Fred Moore <> wrote:
> In article <>,
> Lewis <> wrote:

>> In message <fmoore->
>> Fred Moore <> wrote:
>> > In article <>,
>> > micky <> wrote:
>>
>> >> >BUT, if the drive doesn't support this sort of powered down mode, it
>> >> >doesn't matter.
>> >>
>> >> That's very important. Thanks.
>>
>> > In general, USB drives do not spin down.
>>
>> That is not at all accurate.

> Then please supply some references/documentation to support your claim.

How about the USB3 drive connected to my PC which clearly pauses and
whirrs up when you first access it after an hour or two of not using it?

--
"Woof bloody woof."

In article <>,
Lewis <> wrote:

> In message <fmoore->
> Fred Moore <> wrote:
> > In article <>,
> > Lewis <> wrote:
>
> >> In message <fmoore->
> >> Fred Moore <> wrote:
> >> > In article <>,
> >> > micky <> wrote:
> >>
> >> >> >BUT, if the drive doesn't support this sort of powered down mode, it
> >> >> >doesn't matter.
> >> >>
> >> >> That's very important. Thanks.
> >>
> >> > In general, USB drives do not spin down.
> >>
> >> That is not at all accurate.
>
> > Then please supply some references/documentation to support your claim.
>
> How about the USB3 drive connected to my PC which clearly pauses and
> whirrs up when you first access it after an hour or two of not using it?

Okay, USB 3 is only recently available. I have no experience with USB 3
hard drives. If yours spins down on system sleep, good. Thanks, now I
know. Please note that I took the care to preface my remark about USB HD
spin down with the phrase 'In general'. The only USB <3 drives I've ever
encountered which did spin down with system sleep had special drivers.
The run of the mill don't, in general.

In article <fmoore->,
Fred Moore <> wrote:

> In article <>,
> Lewis <> wrote:
>
> > In message <fmoore->
> > Fred Moore <> wrote:
> > > In article <>,
> > > Lewis <> wrote:
> >
> > >> In message <fmoore->
> > >> Fred Moore <> wrote:
> > >> > In article <>,
> > >> > micky <> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> >> >BUT, if the drive doesn't support this sort of powered down mode, it
> > >> >> >doesn't matter.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> That's very important. Thanks.
> > >>
> > >> > In general, USB drives do not spin down.
> > >>
> > >> That is not at all accurate.
> >
> > > Then please supply some references/documentation to support your claim.
> >
> > How about the USB3 drive connected to my PC which clearly pauses and
> > whirrs up when you first access it after an hour or two of not using it?
>
> Okay, USB 3 is only recently available. I have no experience with USB 3
> hard drives. If yours spins down on system sleep, good. Thanks, now I
> know. Please note that I took the care to preface my remark about USB HD
> spin down with the phrase 'In general'. The only USB <3 drives I've ever
> encountered which did spin down with system sleep had special drivers.
> The run of the mill don't, in general.

I have a LaCie Q2 1TB and a Seagate Freeagent 1TB drive. They spin down
when attached with Firewire and also via USB 2. So I guess it's the
interface inside the enclosure that does this. If it was a cheaper
enclosure, like say Western Digital (all three of their drives died
within 3 months), that might not be the case. The only way to test this
hypothesis is with a large array of drives and enclosures from various
vendors.

Why don't I just cut to the chase.

Girls, you're both pretty.

Boys, you dick isn't big enough. Come back when you're older.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...
[I filter all Goggle Groups posts, so any reply may be automatically ignored]

In article <fmoore->,
Fred Moore <> wrote:

> In article <>,
> Lewis <> wrote:
>
> > In message <fmoore->
> > Fred Moore <> wrote:
> > > In article <>,
> > > Lewis <> wrote:
> >
> > >> In message <fmoore->
> > >> Fred Moore <> wrote:
> > >> > In article <>,
> > >> > micky <> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> >> >BUT, if the drive doesn't support this sort of powered down mode, it
> > >> >> >doesn't matter.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> That's very important. Thanks.
> > >>
> > >> > In general, USB drives do not spin down.
> > >>
> > >> That is not at all accurate.
> >
> > > Then please supply some references/documentation to support your claim.
> >
> > How about the USB3 drive connected to my PC which clearly pauses and
> > whirrs up when you first access it after an hour or two of not using it?
>
> Okay, USB 3 is only recently available. I have no experience with USB 3
> hard drives. If yours spins down on system sleep, good. Thanks, now I
> know. Please note that I took the care to preface my remark about USB HD
> spin down with the phrase 'In general'. The only USB <3 drives I've ever
> encountered which did spin down with system sleep had special drivers.
> The run of the mill don't, in general.

The USB 2 drives attached to my iMac spin down. In fact, the one I use
for backup just came up now. I do know if my iMac goes to sleep and I
have a USB flash drive plugged in, on waking I get an error that a disk
wasn't ejected properly so I assume that doesn't like sleep...

--
Chris Mack "If we show any weakness, the monsters will get cocky!"
'Invid Fan' - 'Yokai Monsters Along With Ghosts'

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 22:07:21 -0400, Invid Fan <>
wrote:

>In article <fmoore->,
>Fred Moore <> wrote:
>
>> In article <>,
>> Lewis <> wrote:
>>
>> > In message <fmoore->
>> > Fred Moore <> wrote:
>> > > In article <>,
>> > > Lewis <> wrote:
>> >
>> > >> In message <fmoore->
>> > >> Fred Moore <> wrote:
>> > >> > In article <>,
>> > >> > micky <> wrote:
>> > >>
>> > >> >> >BUT, if the drive doesn't support this sort of powered down mode, it
>> > >> >> >doesn't matter.
>> > >> >>
>> > >> >> That's very important. Thanks.
>> > >>
>> > >> > In general, USB drives do not spin down.
>> > >>
>> > >> That is not at all accurate.
>> >
>> > > Then please supply some references/documentation to support your claim.
>> >
>> > How about the USB3 drive connected to my PC which clearly pauses and
>> > whirrs up when you first access it after an hour or two of not using it?
>>
>> Okay, USB 3 is only recently available. I have no experience with USB 3
>> hard drives. If yours spins down on system sleep, good. Thanks, now I
>> know. Please note that I took the care to preface my remark about USB HD
>> spin down with the phrase 'In general'. The only USB <3 drives I've ever
>> encountered which did spin down with system sleep had special drivers.
>> The run of the mill don't, in general.
>
>The USB 2 drives attached to my iMac spin down. In fact, the one I use
>for backup just came up now. I do know if my iMac goes to sleep and I
>have a USB flash drive plugged in, on waking I get an error that a disk
>wasn't ejected properly so I assume that doesn't like sleep...

IIUC, since the iMac doesn't go to sleep if it's in the middle of
doing something, your flash drive data and data structure is still
fine, even though you got that error on it whn the computer woke up.
Right?

And the bigger question I've had is, "If you know you have NOT copied
anything to an external drive for say, 10 minutes -- you have no
automatic backups or anything else automatic that would write to the
drive without your knowing-- is it it really necessary to eject a USB
drive properly?

What about "write behind" or "write ahead" (read ahead?)? Does that
apply and cause problems, when 10 minutes or more have passed since
you wrote to the drive?

On Sat, 18 Aug 2012 09:19:22 -0400, micky wrote:

> And the bigger question I've had is, "If you know you have NOT copied
> anything to an external drive for say, 10 minutes -- you have no
> automatic backups or anything else automatic that would write to the
> drive without your knowing-- is it it really necessary to eject a USB
> drive properly?
>
> What about "write behind" or "write ahead" (read ahead?)? Does that
> apply and cause problems, when 10 minutes or more have passed since you
> wrote to the drive?

Windows has a setting called something like "safe removal" for USB
sticks. I assume this simply flushes buffers ASAP after write operations.

FWIW I was running my old iBook booted off an external Firewire drive.
In the event of a power cut the iBook would survive on battery power but
the disk would go down. If I was doing anything at the time, the disk
wouldn't come back in time and the system would freeze. Sometimes I
would get lucky and it would come back, but that was quite rare. I
assumed that page file activity was the culprit and OS X (10.4) couldn't
cope with that stalling.

--
Paul Sture