# external disk keeps sipinning down



## cuq (Aug 4, 2010)

Hi, I need help...
I just bought an external, usb, hitachi xl1000 hard disk (HDS721010CLA332).
The disk works pretty well but it keeps going to sleep/standby mode after three minutes or so...
the disk sometimes keeps starting/stopping all the time... which is bad for the disk it seems (i read that today) and very bad for the  people accessing it (via nfs and web)  because it takes some time to startup again which creates a very disturbing latency...

I'd tried everything that came to my mind to disable that feature and keep the disk spinning but nothing works. I had a lacie in which i could disable the sleep feature with *camcontrol* but in the Hitachi nothing had worked yet...

Does anybody knows how to do this? I would like to disable the feature completely but to increase the time it takes to go zombie would be ok also...

thank you
cheers
cuq


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## cuq (Aug 6, 2010)

hi, I kind of bypass the problem by making a script that keeps echoing, each 50 secs, the date to a file in the disk... it is sub optimal but it keeps the disk alive at least...
i found also an Hitachi manual for the disk but I couldnt find the way to send the commands that shoud disable the advanced power managment that the disk seems to have (page 59)...

7K1000C_USA7K2000_1TB_OEMspec_v2.1.pdf

I keep trying 
cheers


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## User23 (Aug 9, 2010)

If the drive itself power down and not the build-in usb<>ata controller then you might be able to change that with the "feature tool" Feature Tool User Guide

But you will loose the warranty because you need to open the case. This is because the drive needs to be directly connected to ata or sata port.


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## roscoe (Aug 10, 2010)

I have an external USB enclosure that spins down after 15 minutes of inactivity.
To get around this I added a cron job to "touch .wakefile" on the drive every 10 minutes.

Works like a charm.


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## cuq (Aug 11, 2010)

thanks USer23, I will give a try to the tool!


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## cuq (Aug 11, 2010)

thanks roscoe, it is  much better than keep echoing the date to a file! :^]
while i get the time to do with the tool i'll implement this...
cheers 
and thank you  both


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