(I think this topic has come up a few times before on these forums - not sure if there was ever a good answer given)
I have a 10 year old, spinning rust USB hard drive (formatted NTFS). For most of those 10 years, it was connected to a Windows 7 machine that was up 24/7. Because it was Windows, everything "just worked" - in particular, the drive would "go to sleep" - that is, the blue activity light would go out - if it was inactive for some period of time (maybe 10 minutes, but I never actually clocked it). I believe that this is an essential feature and allows the drive to stay functional for the long haul. Most other hard drives that I have owned that did not have this "go to sleep" feature have died - because I think having them spinning 24/7 leads to early death.
However, and this is where it gets interesting, the Windows machine that hosted this drive recently died, so I ended up taking the drive to a Linux machine (RaspiOS/buster). Under Linux, the activity light never goes out. I think this is a bad thing. I think that, under Windows, it "just works", but there is probably something I have to do to get the same functionality under Linux.
How do I do this?
Note: I have been intentionally vague about the make/model/etc of any of the drives or machines involved. I want a generic answer (one that will "just work"), not something like "go to the web site of the drive manufacturer, donwload fooBazNerfle.ZIP, wrestle with the obscure contents of the ZIP file for a few weeks, give up" type of answer.
I have a 10 year old, spinning rust USB hard drive (formatted NTFS). For most of those 10 years, it was connected to a Windows 7 machine that was up 24/7. Because it was Windows, everything "just worked" - in particular, the drive would "go to sleep" - that is, the blue activity light would go out - if it was inactive for some period of time (maybe 10 minutes, but I never actually clocked it). I believe that this is an essential feature and allows the drive to stay functional for the long haul. Most other hard drives that I have owned that did not have this "go to sleep" feature have died - because I think having them spinning 24/7 leads to early death.
However, and this is where it gets interesting, the Windows machine that hosted this drive recently died, so I ended up taking the drive to a Linux machine (RaspiOS/buster). Under Linux, the activity light never goes out. I think this is a bad thing. I think that, under Windows, it "just works", but there is probably something I have to do to get the same functionality under Linux.
How do I do this?
Note: I have been intentionally vague about the make/model/etc of any of the drives or machines involved. I want a generic answer (one that will "just work"), not something like "go to the web site of the drive manufacturer, donwload fooBazNerfle.ZIP, wrestle with the obscure contents of the ZIP file for a few weeks, give up" type of answer.
Statistics: Posted by BigRedMailbox — Sun Dec 15, 2024 11:03 pm