Western Digital MyBook (hard drive) shutting down periodically

NATO said:

I know what you're describing, the MyBook drives have a built-in auto-spindown function which shuts the drive down after approx 10 minutes of inactivity, which is independent of Mac OS X.

To solve this (to the best I could), I created a small hidden file on the drive (although it could be any file, I chose a hidden file for convenience), and added a small cron job to 'touch' the file every 5 minutes, thus avoiding the drive shutting down while the drive was 'active' in OS X.

The line I added to my crontab was

Code:

*/5   *   *   *   *   touch '/Volumes/My External HD/.hiddenfile'

The drive has remained in the powered-up state perfectly since.

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rockstarjoe said:

This sounds like an excellent solution, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand how to set up the file-touching cron thing. The terminal scares me. Could you explain a bit more? Thanks!

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NATO said:

I know what you're describing, the MyBook drives have a built-in auto-spindown function which shuts the drive down after approx 10 minutes of inactivity, which is independent of Mac OS X.

To solve this (to the best I could), I created a small hidden file on the drive (although it could be any file, I chose a hidden file for convenience), and added a small cron job to 'touch' the file every 5 minutes, thus avoiding the drive shutting down while the drive was 'active' in OS X.

The line I added to my crontab was

Code:

*/5   *   *   *   *   touch '/Volumes/My External HD/.hiddenfile'

The drive has remained in the powered-up state perfectly since.

Click to expand...

#!/bin/bash
# Used to not let a volume named MYBOOK sleep

volpresent=$(mount | grep MYBOOK | wc -c)

if [ $volpresent -gt 0 ]
then
	touch /Volumes/MYBOOK/.hiddenfile
fi

balkce said:

Although your solution is good, if for some reason the disk is not connected (maybe it is a laptop), the logs will be flooded by errors stating that the .hiddenfile is not found

A simple bash script can see if the volume is mounted or ...

Click to expand...

NATO said:

I know what you're describing, the MyBook drives have a built-in auto-spindown function which shuts the drive down after approx 10 minutes of inactivity, which is independent of Mac OS X.

To solve this (to the best I could), I created a small hidden file on the drive (although it could be any file, I chose a hidden file for convenience), and added a small cron job to 'touch' the file every 5 minutes, thus avoiding the drive shutting down while the drive was 'active' in OS X.

The line I added to my crontab was

Code:

*/5   *   *   *   *   touch '/Volumes/My External HD/.hiddenfile'

The drive has remained in the powered-up state perfectly since.

Click to expand...

rdhatch said:

Not to tricky. Here goes:

1. Open Terminal.
2. type: "su -" and then type in the root password
3. type "crontab -e" You are now in the "vi" editor...kind of tricky here...so type exactly what I put here.
4. type "i" Thats a lowercase "i".
5. now type something like this */5 * * * * touch '/Volumes/MyBook/.hiddenfile' (replace MyBook with the name of your MyBook. Also, mind the single ticks)
6. Hit the Escape key.
7. type "x"
8. close terminal.

Your're all done! Good luck!

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johnpublic said:

2nd level support @ Western Digital directed me to download and install the latest firmware for the MyBook. That fixed the problem. The MyBook stays mounted. No longer need to run a job to touch a file.

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Carlos E said:

Do you have a link? I updated the firmware and I'm still having the same issue. Maybe I used the wrong firmware.

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johnpublic said:

Depends on what model and OS you are using.
Click on your product at this link: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?level1=1&lang=en

Then, under "Select the software to download:" list, click on the firmware update for either Mac or PC - whichever you have.

For me, I have the MyBook Studio Edition, 1TB, USB2.0/FireWire400 / FireWire800 / eSATA, which is model # WD10000H1Q-00. Since I'm using a Mac, I downloaded the file at http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=113&sid=60&lang=en - File name WD_MB_Studio_1034_1_03.dmg, Firmware Version 1.034, dated January 2009.

The drive continues to work like a champ. I find that using these sequences for booting up and down help:
Booting up:
- Macbook - boot up
- eSATA card - insert
- MyBook - power on

Booting down:
- MyBook - "eject" drive from finder window on Mac
- MyBook - power down
- eSATA card - disconnect / eject
- Macbook - shut down

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Carlos E said:

I have the same drives and I updated the drives using the version of the firmware you posted. What eSata card are you using? I have 2 cards. A sonnet Tempo expresscard and an Iogear eSata expresscard. Both are 2 port cards and I'm using 2 WD 1TB drives. This is on a 2009 Unibody 17" MacBook Pro.

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johnpublic said:

At first, was using a Griffin eSATA ExpressCard/34 (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/esataexpresscard), but learned that its Silicon Image chipset is problematic with Mac 10.5+ OS. Learned that eSATA cards w/ JMicron JMB360 chipset are natively supported by the Mac OS. I bought a PCMC-EXP34-1S2 (http://www.computercablesource.com/pcmcia-expresscard-1x-esata-port-34mm-jmicron-chipset-1686.html) from Computer Cable Source (http://www.computercablesource.com/). Unfortunately, it looks like the two-port eSATA card they sell is based on the Silicon Image chipset. Perhaps a two-port JMicron-based card is available elsewhere.

I see that Sonnet Tech (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_express34.html)has a warning message on their website for their Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34: "Temporarily not recommended for Mac systems with greater than 2GB of memory." Looks like Iomega's eSATA 3Gbps 2-port ExpressCard/34 (http://www.iogear.com/product/GPS702e3W6/?PHPSESSID=fb059044e229a4d70806379d8660bb10) only supports 10.4 of the Mac OS (on the View All tab, under Requirements). This is consistent with Silicon Image chipsets that don't play well with 10.5+. Griffin tech support confirmed the same challenges.

Griffin Technology recommended, and I agree, that in System Preferences for your Mac, under Energy Saver, UN-check putting the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted on your progress.

(The third party Mac OS drivers for the Silicon Image chipset are old and have not been updated in several years, hence the compatibility issues. Learned all this through troubleshooting and googling.)

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Carlos E said:

The issue I was having is that the Western Digital Mybook has drive sleep written into the firmware and 10.5 will not over ride the sleep with the energy saver preference telling the drives not to sleep.

I found this work around. I wrote a script that looks at a hidden file on the WD drive every 5 minutes. Since it's getting activity every 5 minutes it doesn't allow the drive to sleep. I followed the instructions and got it working.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090316190817357

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johnpublic said:

Yes, I was having the same problem and was using the same fix until I upgraded the WD firmware. The upgrade permanently fixed my problem and negated the need for me to periodically "touch" a file on the WD. Glad you found a solution that works.

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johnpublic said:

Yes, I was having the same problem and was using the same fix until I upgraded the WD firmware. The upgrade permanently fixed my problem and negated the need for me to periodically "touch" a file on the WD. Glad you found a solution that works.

Click to expand...