[ale] Anyone using a Western Digital external HD ?

Michael H. Warfield mhw at WittsEnd.com
Wed Nov 16 11:00:36 EST 2011


On Wed, 2011-11-16 at 05:22 -0500, Courtney Thomas wrote: 
> If yes, under what system and how should it be installed and used, please ?

> I've been given one [500MB MyBook, USB & Firewire capable] that the 
> former owner says will only intermittently shutdown or be recognized
> by Windows Vista, so would like to use it myself if I can figure out 
> what's been the problem under winders.

IIRC, some of those WD MyBooks had problems with the spindown logic a
few years back.  I don't recall anything about Vista but Vista had its
own sets of problems so all bets are off there.  I've also seen some
comments about iMacs and the MyBooks.  I seem to recall some comment
from back then that the USB interface would disconnect when the drive
would spin down but, in retrospect, that really doesn't seen to make
much sense to me now.  If you do a google search on "western digital my
book linux spin down" you'll find lots of commentary on it with some
suggesting to set the spindown time to fairly long values.

I've got some 750's that have never given me a problem under Linux.  I
guess I got lucky.  It was shortly after I bought those that I started
hearing that some people where having problems.  Mine DON'T have the
firewire port, though, so it may have been that particular model, which
was slightly more expensive when I was looking at them side by side.  I
bought these when Best Buy was clearing them out to make way for the
newer models that included the firewire port.

I would hook it up and give it a shot and see how it behaves.  If you
need to, set the spindown timeout to a long value and see if that makes
an impact.  If it's been given to you, I would guess you don't have
anything to lose from playing with it and seeing how it acts.

> Thank you,
> C.Thomas

Regards,
Mike
-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
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