[ale] Anyone using a Western Digital external HD ?

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Thu, 2011-11-17 at 17:02 -0500, Courtney Thomas wrote: 
> Mike,
> 
> Thanks for the reply.

> How do you install it and under which Linux flavor ?

How did I install it?  I just plugged it in.  It didn't need any
installing (at least not for the USB side of things).  It just shows up
in the partition table shortly after plugging it in.  If it doesn't, you
should check your syslog messages file and see what messages are being
logged by the USB subsystem.

Which Linux flavor?  I've been using Fedora for like forever.  The
particular machine I have used this array (4 x 750GB) on probably
started out as Fedora 7 or 8 and is currently at Fedora 15.  I may be
moving it to another machine shortly and that may be moving to Fedora 16
before long.

> Courtney

Regards,
Mike

> On 11/16/2011 11:00 AM, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> > 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
> >
> >
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-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
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