External HDD problem

glasskuter · Aug 18, 2024

I have about 10 external HDDs gathering dust in the closet and about 30 more cleaned sata HDDs I'll never use (all are 500gb and up). Last year I donated probably 50 or so cleaned smaller drives and need to donate these. The only spinners I haven't replaced yet are in my Plex server for music and movies which I rarely ever use anymore. In any case, those are backed up and need to go, too..

As far as my day to day drives, now that I've experienced using SSDs and NVMEs in enclosures, I'll never go back to using spinners for storage and backups. They're not that expensive if you catch a good deal on Amazon Days or Black Friday. You don't have to dish out big bucks for a Samsung drive either. There are a lot of good lower cost drives out there if you do your research. Enclosures run around $20.

Windows 11 User · Aug 18, 2024

glasskuter said:
I have about 10 external HDDs gathering dust in the closet and about 30 more cleaned sata HDDs I'll never use (all are 500gb and up). Last year I donated probably 50 or so cleaned smaller drives and need to donate these. The only spinners I haven't replaced yet are in my Plex server for music and movies which I rarely ever use anymore. In any case, those are backed up and need to go, too..

As far as my day to day drives, now that I've experienced using SSDs and NVMEs in enclosures, I'll never go back to using spinners for storage and backups. They're not that expensive if you catch a good deal on Amazon Days or Black Friday. You don't have to dish out big bucks for a Samsung drive either. There are a lot of good lower cost drives out there if you do your research. Enclosures run around $20.

I think my WD external HDD is from 2013. I guess I should buy another one since there's data that's only stored there.

MisterEd · Aug 18, 2024

For backups I try to size the external drives so they are 2-3 times larger than the drives that are being backed up. For example, my main desktop has 2 x 2TB M.2 NVME SSDs for a total of 4TB. I back up to a 12 TB Western Digital Elements external HDD. It would be really expensive to buy an SSD that large.

Windows 11 User · Aug 18, 2024

MisterEd said:
For backups I try to size the external drives so they are 2-3 times larger than the drives that are being backed up. For example, my main desktop has 2 x 2TB M.2 NVME SSDs for a total of 4TB. I back up to a 12 TB Western Digital Elements external HDD. It would be really expensive to buy an SSD that large.

For me even a 2.5" 1 TB external SSD is still expensive, let alone a 1 TB M.2 NVMe external SSD.

hdmi · Aug 18, 2024

Windows 11 User said:
I didn't even try HDDScan. Where can I disable the PM timer on it?

First, make sure that your HDD is selected in the listbox at the top. Next, choose Tools, then Features. If supported, the PM feature should allow you to disable the Idle Timer of the HDD.

If this works for you, you can choose Tools again, then Command. This will let you build a command that can be run, e.g., from the command line or within a batch script. The command should contain the DevicePath of the HDD, followed by a parameter. E.g., the -Z parameter can be used to spin the HDD down immediately as soon as the command is run. The -PM parameter can be used to set the Idle Timer; it must be followed by a single space character followed by the number of seconds. For some HDDs, setting it to 0 is what disables the Idle Timer. Whereas, for some other HDDs, doing this has the same effect as setting the Idle Timer to the maximum value that it can support. If that's your case, you could try setting it to 255 to see if that causes it to be disabled, but I am only guessing at this point. I think that if the maximum that it can support is 240 (20 minutes), then setting it to 241 or higher has the same effect as setting it to 240. Depending on the make and model of your HDD, setting it to 255 might still disable the Idle Timer nevertheless. I really don't know, but you can find out.

Unplugging the external HDD, rebooting or waking the PC from sleep/hibernate causes the Idle Timer to be reset back to factory default. But it is still possible to add a task in Task Scheduler to run the command again each time after this happens. The HDDScan.exe command with the -PM parameter is essentially the same as hdparm -S on Linux.

Windows 11 User said:
Anyway, if disabling sleep, will it degrade the external HDD faster?

You can make a command that lets you re-enable sleep each time when you aren't going to use the HDD for a certain period, or are only going to use it in such a particular way that sleep doesn't disturb your work for a certain period. If you can remember to avoid keeping the HDD spinning for multiple dozens of hours per week on total average when there is absolutely no good reason to keep it spinning for that long, then you should be fine.

KeepAliveHD might be more practical to use. It has a convenient button to make it start/stop writing to the HDD, and, it also has an easy option to make it stop writing to the HDD after the user is idle for a period that you can specify. Again, just remember to avoid keeping the HDD spinning for a terrible lot longer than really should be needed to achieve the goal of not letting sleep disturb your work, but also remember that any storage device can suddenly fail with no prior warning signs of any kind whatsoever so all data stored on it can be permanently lost.

If you don't have a reliable backup strategy to protect all your important data, then if you had spent more than just a few percent extra money on a HDD that had less than one percent failure rate (i.e., according to some test results that might or might not become statistically relevant within the next couple of years), you still would have been much better off getting the cheaper HDD that presumably had one or two (or three) percent higher failure rate. That's just because this extra money would be better spent on fixing the problem that actually matters, as reliable backups are the only true way to be safe enough that you can justify their cost. (Even, if it means that you have to skimp on the HDDs themselves a tad to able to afford what's needed to transform unreliable backups into reliable backups.)

Windows 11 User · Aug 18, 2024

hdmi said:
First, make sure that your HDD is selected in the listbox at the top. Next, choose Tools, then Features. If supported, the PM feature should allow you to disable the Idle Timer of the HDD.

If this works for you, you can choose Tools again, then Command. This will let you build a command that can be run, e.g., from the command line or within a batch script. The command should contain the DevicePath of the HDD, followed by a parameter. E.g., the -Z parameter can be used to spin the HDD down immediately as soon as the command is run. The -PM parameter can be used to set the Idle Timer; it must be followed by a single space character followed by the number of seconds. For some HDDs, setting it to 0 is what disables the Idle Timer. Whereas, for some other HDDs, doing this has the same effect as setting the Idle Timer to the maximum value that it can support. If that's your case, you could try setting it to 255 to see if that causes it to be disabled, but I am only guessing at this point. I think that if the maximum that it can support is 240 (20 minutes), then setting it to 241 or higher has the same effect as setting it to 240. Depending on the make and model of your HDD, setting it to 255 might still disable the Idle Timer nevertheless. I really don't know, but you can find out.

Unplugging the external HDD, rebooting or waking the PC from sleep/hibernate causes the Idle Timer to be reset back to factory default. But it is still possible to add a task in Task Scheduler to run the command again each time after this happens. The HDDScan.exe command with the -PM parameter is essentially the same as hdparm -S on Linux.

You can make a command that lets you re-enable sleep each time when you aren't going to use the HDD for a certain period, or are only going to use it in such a particular way that sleep doesn't disturb your work for a certain period. If you can remember to avoid keeping the HDD spinning for multiple dozens of hours per week on total average when there is absolutely no good reason to keep it spinning for that long, then you should be fine.

KeepAliveHD might be more practical to use. It has a convenient button to make it start/stop writing to the HDD, and, it also has an easy option to make it stop writing to the HDD after the user is idle for a period that you can specify. Again, just remember to avoid keeping the HDD spinning for a terrible lot longer than really should be needed to achieve the goal of not letting sleep disturb your work, but also remember that any storage device can suddenly fail with no prior warning signs of any kind whatsoever so all data stored on it can be permanently lost.

If you don't have a reliable backup strategy to protect all your important data, then if you had spent more than just a few percent extra money on a HDD that had less than one percent failure rate (i.e., according to some test results that might or might not become statistically relevant within the next couple of years), you still would have been much better off getting the cheaper HDD that presumably had one or two (or three) percent higher failure rate. That's just because this extra money would be better spent on fixing the problem that actually matters, as reliable backups are the only true way to be safe enough that you can justify their cost. (Even, if it means that you have to skimp on the HDDs themselves a tad to able to afford what's needed to transform unreliable backups into reliable backups.)

HDDScan says my external HDD doesn't support "Automatic Acoustic Management". Where can I disable sleep mode, in "Power Management", after clicking "Set" next to "Idle Timer Disable"?

Also, may I have problems if disconnecting USB devices without ejecting them first? I'm asking it because of this (I have the "Quick removal" setting checked) and I just want to be sure.

hdmi · Aug 19, 2024

Windows 11 User said:
HDDScan says my external HDD doesn't support "Automatic Acoustic Management". Where can I disable sleep mode, in "Power Management", after clicking "Set" next to "Idle Timer Disable"?

Under "Power Management", try moving the little round button of the slider all the way to the left so that "Disable" appears in the white box (like shown in the example screenshot). Next, click on the "Set" button.

Windows 11 User said:
Also, may I have problems if disconnecting USB devices without ejecting them first? I'm asking it because of this (I have the "Quick removal" setting checked) and I just want to be sure.

For reasons that should be completely obvious, unplugging the drive when a file transfer on it has not yet been completed will still cause that transfer to be interrupted. So, "Quick removal" still assumes that you already know how to properly prevent this. How to Never "Safely Remove" a USB Drive Again on Windows 10

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

hdmi said:
Under "Power Management", try moving the little round button of the slider all the way to the left so that "Disable" appears in the white box (like shown in the example screenshot). Next, click on the "Set" button.

For reasons that should be completely obvious, unplugging the drive when a file transfer on it has not yet been completed will still cause that transfer to be interrupted. So, "Quick removal" still assumes that you already know how to properly prevent this. How to Never "Safely Remove" a USB Drive Again on Windows 10

Where's the screenshot? Anyway, like I said, "Disable" already "Idle Timer" so is sleep already disabled? If so, it's weird. If not, do I have to click "Set"?

Of course I wouldn't do it when transferring files/folders from or to it but what if the external HDD is being used by an app or background process and I don't know it?

TM21 · Aug 19, 2024

For years, I just snatched a Flash Drive out of the USB port when I was done with it, never even thinking about using the very available function to "Safely remove hardware and Eject Media". and I usually got away with it, till..... A friend gave me a 1TB (no name) Flash Drive, that I was constantly having problems with, TILL, , , I started properly Ejecting that drive before removing it from the PC.

NOW, as long as I properly Eject the drive, when done with it, I'm OK and that Flash Drive works OK. That's good too, because that's one of my Main Backup drives.

Sometimes we're our own worse enemies, when we get in a hurry and don't do things the RIGHT way.

Cheers Mates,
TM

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

TechnoMage2021 said:
For years, I just snatched a Flash Drive out of the USB port when I was done with it, never even thinking about using the very available function to "Safely remove hardware and Eject Media". and I usually got away with it, till..... A friend gave me a 1TB (no name) Flash Drive, that I was constantly having problems with, TILL, , , I started properly Ejecting that drive before removing it from the PC.

NOW, as long as I properly Eject the drive, when done with it, I'm OK and that Flash Drive works OK. That's good too, because that's one of my Main Backup drives.

Sometimes we're our own worse enemies, when we get in a hurry and don't do things the RIGHT way.

Cheers Mates,
TM

Which problems are those? I don't get it why ejecting the drive fixed them.

Berton · Aug 19, 2024

The main issue I see with disconnecting USB drives is Windows is not always through writing to them which can cause corrupted files or sometimes antivirus is not finished scanning.

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

Berton said:
The main issue I see with disconnecting USB drives is Windows is not always through writing to them which can cause corrupted files or sometimes antivirus is not finished scanning.

That's why I don't disconnect USB drives when copying files/folders to them or from there. What if the external HDD is being used by an app, background process or Windows process and I don't know it?

Berton · Aug 19, 2024

Windows 11 User said:
That's why I don't disconnect USB drives when copying files/folders to them or from there. What if the external HDD is being used by an app, background process or Windows process and I don't know it?

Hence the warning, helps prevent disaster, a lot like other things in our lives if we just pay attention.

hdmi · Aug 20, 2024

Windows 11 User said:
Where's the screenshot? Anyway, like I said, "Disable" already "Idle Timer" so is sleep already disabled? If so, it's weird. If not, do I have to click "Set"?

It's the example screenshot in my post #25. I haven't played with this setting enough to know anything much about how the sleep behavior of various different HDD models from various different HDD brands might be affected by it. On my 8TB Seagate HDD (ST8000DM002 old model) while using an ASMT 2105 USB 3.0 adapter piece on it, setting it to Disabled (0) causes the HDD to still fall asleep after more than just a few minutes. I haven't measured the time that it takes. This specific 8TB model from Seagate is not a "green" HDD. It is a decent-performing 7200rpm 3.5″ desktop model that's in the consumer-grade HDD product lineup of Seagate, and, it uses CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) instead of SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording).

If setting the internal Idle Timer of your HDD to 0 does not stop your HDD from still falling asleep after you already changed the "turn off hard disk after" setting in your currently active Power Plan to "Never", probably it means that sleep cannot be disabled on your HDD.

Windows 11 User said:
but what if the external HDD is being used by an app or background process and I don't know it?

Then basically, you are SOL (Sh!t Outta Luck). lol

Windows 11 User · Aug 20, 2024

hdmi said:
It's the example screenshot in my post #25. I haven't played with this setting enough to know anything much about how the sleep behavior of various different HDD models from various different HDD brands might be affected by it. On my 8TB Seagate HDD (ST8000DM002 old model) while using an ASMT 2105 USB 3.0 adapter piece on it, setting it to Disabled (0) causes the HDD to still fall asleep after more than just a few minutes. I haven't measured the time that it takes. This specific 8TB model from Seagate is not a "green" HDD. It is a decent-performing 7200rpm 3.5″ desktop model that's in the consumer-grade HDD product lineup of Seagate, and, it uses CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) instead of SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording).

If setting the internal Idle Timer of your HDD to 0 does not stop your HDD from still falling asleep after you already changed the "turn off hard disk after" setting in your currently active Power Plan to "Never", probably it means that sleep cannot be disabled on your HDD.

Then basically, you are SOL (Sh!t Outta Luck). lol

My screenshot matches yours and I didn't do anything besides opening HDDScan. How can I set the timer to 0? I'm not on the PC right now. Yes, that Windows setting should be enough to disable it, not using a program like HDDScan and maybe the said setting as well. I didn't touch the Windows setting in my current install but I think I did in previous ones and it didn't work. Also, may the external HDD be affected if Windows goes to sleep, hibernates, the screen turns off, etc. (I'm excluding turning off, restarting, signing out and maybe locking out for obvious reasons)? I'm asking this because I use another external HDD in this PC for a thing which happens outside the PC and that requires I have access to it since it uses some files in it.

How can I know if my HDD is green? Do I have to take the enclosure?

Berton · Aug 20, 2024

Windows 11 User said:
How can I know if my HDD is green? Do I have to take the enclosure?

Yes, some may be easy to do but not all are. The various brands seldom specify exactly which model they use, e.g. I've had NAS drives from WD that one had the green label and one that had the blue label and from Buffalo that used different model names such as IronWolf. If wanting specific models or specifications one can get empty NAS cases and buy their desired model of drives. The same for the USB cases.

Windows 11 User · Aug 20, 2024

Berton said:
Yes, some may be easy to do but not all are. The various brands seldom specify exactly which model they use, e.g. I've had NAS drives from WD that one had the green label and one that had the blue label and from Buffalo that used different model names such as IronWolf. If wanting specific models or specifications one can get empty NAS cases and buy their desired model of drives. The same for the USB cases.

What if I search the external HDD's model on the web?

Berton · Aug 20, 2024

Windows 11 User said:
What if I search the external HDD's model on the web?

That should work, may even have an image of it.

hdmi · Aug 20, 2024

Windows 11 User said:
My screenshot matches yours and I didn't do anything besides opening HDDScan. How can I set the timer to 0?

I already explained this. On some (or a lot of) HDDs, the internal Idle Timer cannot be disabled. As a result, setting it to 0 might or might not disable it. Moving the slider (under Power Management) all the way to the left before you click on "Set" should set it to 0, and, as an alternative method, a command can also be used to set it to 0 (i.e., with the -PM parameter). It also is possible that 0 is the factory default value in the HDD you have. If that's your case, then unplugging/booting/waking up from sleep/hibernate will also set it to 0, as unplugging/booting/waking up from sleep/hibernate will set it to the factory default value.

Windows 11 User said:
I'm not on the PC right now. Yes, that Windows setting should be enough to disable it, not using a program like HDDScan and maybe the said setting as well.

If the internal Idle Timer of the HDD in question is disabled by factory default, then yes, the advanced setting in the Power Plan of Windows should do the trick. If, however, the internal Idle Timer of the HDD cannot be disabled, then the only way to keep the HDD from falling alseep is to periodically stop the HDD from staying idle, which is what KeepAliveHD effectively lets you achieve, and lets you achieve in a fairly user-friendly manner. KeepAliveHD not only is free, but also it is open source, and hosted on GitHub. It should work with every HDD, and should work regardless of whether the internal Idle Timer of the HDD can be disabled. What do you want more?

That being said, keeping a HDD awake is a piece of cake. But the same cannot be said about preventing Windows from waking it up each time when you want it to stay alseep; it actually took several years until I finally found the solution myself.

Windows 11 User said:
I didn't touch the Windows setting in my current install but I think I did in previous ones and it didn't work.

See above. The internal Idle Timer of the HDD must also be disabled or else it simply won't work.

Windows 11 User said:
Also, may the external HDD be affected if Windows goes to sleep, hibernates, the screen turns off, etc. (I'm excluding turning off, restarting, signing out and maybe locking out for obvious reasons)? I'm asking this because I use another external HDD in this PC for a thing which happens outside the PC and that requires I have access to it since it uses some files in it.

It shouldn't be affected if you use KeepAliveHD and you enable the setting that lets KeepAliveHD automatically start when Windows starts. Whereas if you use HDDScan, the sleep hehavior of the HDD will be reverted back to its factory default like I already said, but only turning the screen off has no effect on it if the system doesn't support Modern Standby.

Windows 11 User said:
How can I know if my HDD is green? Do I have to take the enclosure?

How do i find out what colour drives are inside my "My Books"

CrystalDiskInfo will give you the info. example: this is my 3TB My Book and then google search … WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 Result: It’s a WD Green Drive. Looking at dis-assembly youtube guides for the 6TB My Book … they are most likely WD Blue Drives and the 8TB My Book’s are probably Reds.

community.wd.com

Windows 11 User · Aug 20, 2024

hdmi said:
I already explained this. On some (or a lot of) HDDs, the internal Idle Timer cannot be disabled. As a result, setting it to 0 might or might not disable it. Moving the slider (under Power Management) all the way to the left before you click on "Set" should set it to 0, and, as an alternative method, a command can also be used to set it to 0 (i.e., with the -PM parameter). It also is possible that 0 is the factory default value in the HDD you have. If that's your case, then unplugging/booting/waking up from sleep/hibernate will also set it to 0, as unplugging/booting/waking up from sleep/hibernate will set it to the factory default value.

If the internal Idle Timer of the HDD in question is disabled by factory default, then yes, the advanced setting in the Power Plan of Windows should do the trick. If, however, the internal Idle Timer of the HDD cannot be disabled, then the only way to keep the HDD from falling alseep is to periodically stop the HDD from staying idle, which is what KeepAliveHD effectively lets you achieve, and lets you achieve in a fairly user-friendly manner. KeepAliveHD not only is free, but also it is open source, and hosted on GitHub. It should work with every HDD, and should work regardless of whether the internal Idle Timer of the HDD can be disabled. What do you want more?

That being said, keeping a HDD awake is a piece of cake. But the same cannot be said about preventing Windows from waking it up each time when you want it to stay alseep; it actually took several years until I finally found the solution myself.

See above. The internal Idle Timer of the HDD must also be disabled or else it simply won't work.

It shouldn't be affected if you use KeepAliveHD and you enable the setting that lets KeepAliveHD automatically start when Windows starts. Whereas if you use HDDScan, the sleep hehavior of the HDD will be reverted back to its factory default like I already said, but only turning the screen off has no effect on it if the system doesn't support Modern Standby.

How do i find out what colour drives are inside my "My Books"

CrystalDiskInfo will give you the info. example: this is my 3TB My Book and then google search … WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 Result: It’s a WD Green Drive. Looking at dis-assembly youtube guides for the 6TB My Book … they are most likely WD Blue Drives and the 8TB My Book’s are probably Reds.

community.wd.com

I made a mistake. I thought that Window setting regarded USB devices but it actually concerns the internal HDD/SSD and the files I need are on the internal SSD and not on the external SSD, even if I can get them working if they're on the latter, on an USB flash drive or on microSD card connected via USB adapter (both connected to the PC) but then they might sleep when being used (as well as on the internal SSD, I guess).

Isn't there a way to prevent the internal HDD from sleeping just by using Windows settings?

External HDD problem

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