my WD MyBook is all Rip Van Winkle

In article <fkoktm$qme$1@e250.ripco.com>, Steve <heitke.RemoveThis@ripco.com>
wrote:

> max <betatron.RemoveThis@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >MacBookPro 15" 2.4 ghz + WD 500 gigabyte MyBook quad-interface external
> >hd. While it's working, it works fairly well.
> >
> >I thought i was going to use it as a Time Machine drive but:
> >
> >Iif i don't access the disk for a short period (say 15 minutes) it goes
> >to sleep and nothing can wake it up, dismount it or anything -- in fact,
> >if i try to access it after it goes to sleep, it slags my whole machine,
> >and i lose open items on the desktop as a result of having to use the
> >power-button reboot.
> >
>
> Hey .max, do you do any command-line stuff? You could write a script that
> accesses the drive and run it as a cron job that runs every X minutes. It
> would keep the drive awake but it could also shorten its life due to not
> being able to sleep.
>
> -Steve

funny you should mention that. It had occurred to me. It might not be
such a porblem anyway, since i take my computer with me someplace (work,
panera) almost every day.

thanks for the affirmation... I thnk that's what i'll do if i can't get
it to behave normaly.

..max

--
The part of betatron @ earthlink . net was played by a garden gnome

On Dec 24 2007, 9:50 pm, max <betat... DeleteThis @earthlink.net> wrote:
> In article <fkoktm$qm...@e250.ripco.com>, Steve <hei... DeleteThis @ripco.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > max <betat... DeleteThis @earthlink.net> wrote:
> > >MacBookPro 15" 2.4 ghz + WD 500 gigabyte MyBook quad-interface external
> > >hd.  While it's working, it works fairly well.
>
> > >I thought i was going to use it as a Time Machine drive but:
>
> > >Iif i don't access the disk for a short period (say 15 minutes) it goes
> > >to sleep and nothing can wake it up, dismount it or anything -- in fact,
> > >if i try to access it after it goes to sleep, it slags my whole machine,
> > >and i lose open items on the desktop as a result of having to use the
> > >power-button reboot.
>
> > Hey .max, do you do any command-line stuff?  You could write a script that
> > accesses the drive and run it as a cron job that runs every X minutes.  It
> > would keep the drive awake but it could also shorten its life due to not
> > being able to sleep.
>
> > -Steve
>
> funny you should mention that.  It had occurred to me.  It might not be
> such a porblem anyway, since i take my computer with me someplace (work,
> panera) almost every day.  
>
> thanks for the affirmation... I thnk that's what i'll do if i can't get
> it to behave normaly.
>
> .max
>
> --
> The part of betatron @ earthlink . net was played by a garden gnome- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

I bought a 500GB My Book two weeks ago. I noticed that it "hibernates"
after about 12 hours "online". I created a script that reads the root
of the drive every 10 minutes to keep it busy, but it did not help at
all. WD has not replied my note about this issue yet.

> > > >Iif i don't access the disk for a short period (say 15 minutes) it goes
> > > >to sleep and nothing can wake it up, dismount it or anything -- in fact,
> > > >if i try to access it after it goes to sleep, it slags my whole machine,
> > > >and i lose open items on the desktop as a result of having to use the
> > > >power-button reboot.

> I bought a 500GB My Book two weeks ago. I noticed that it "hibernates"
> after about 12 hours "online". I created a script that reads the root
> of the drive every 10 minutes to keep it busy, but it did not help at
> all. WD has not replied my note about this issue yet.

I can confirm the issues. I got two 1TB WD MyBook Studio to set up a
miniserver and both the units have the same problem. I tried all the
possible combinations of ports (FireWire and USB), but to no avail.
The disks go to sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity (and this
"feature" cannot be disabled as confirmed by WD) and simply do not
wake up anymore (with or without the useless WD software installed).
This is a known (but not aknowledged by WD) problem (surf the internet
and you'll see a lot of reports) and I cannot understand why WD didn't
anything (a firmware update?) to solve it; it seems it's a problem
present with all they MyBook range of products.

I hoped to have solved the 10 minutes-sleep with a crontab like this:

*/8 * * * * root df > /Volumes/BigDisk-1/.tick
*/8 * * * * root df > /Volumes/BigDisk-2/.tick

but also if I was successfull in avoiding disk sleep every 10 minutes
(the crontab starts every 8 minutes), I noticed that after an
unverified number of hours (about half a day, btw) the units stop
working and usually a reboot does not awake and remount them; you have
to power cycle them and often detach and replug their data cables.

I cannot understand how a big company like WD doesn't promptly answer
to this issue and how can they ship a so flawed product (and remember
that MyBook Studio edition is "made for Mac" and shipped HFS+
formatted already!!!! Ironic.)

I think I will dismantle the units and put the drives in a "normal"
external enclosure; but you can be sure I'll never buy a WD external
drive again and won't recommend it to my customers also.