External hard drive being accessed

[Enigmachine]

Hey all, I'm looking for suggestions here;

I got an USB-based external hard drive that I use mostly for backups, it works fine and the software backs up my documents every night. I've set it up so it powers down after 5 minute's idle time, so it sits there and does nothing all day.

I don't want to turn it off completely, because I would most likely forget to turn it back on for the backups, and if I have to manually do something, it means my backup isn't automated, right? :D

So it goes to idle fine, but from time to time it powers up and spins the disk for some obscure reason, 5-6 times a day. I don't like that since most HD die when powering up. I was wondering if any of you has an idea of how I could find out why it does that, or which program causes the power up, so I can stop using it? Any idea/software suggestion would be welcome. Thanks. :)

[werty316]

So let me understand this, it powers up on its own? When a HD powers up its spins. Does it constantly spin without stopping? Does the HD activity light keep blinking/showing the HD is being accessed?

If you want to backup wouldn't you notice this HD not showing in explorer so then that would remind you to turn it on ;)

[DragonMaster]

AntiVirus?
Windows Explorer?

When you go in "My Computer" or saving something, there are some chances that all drives get accessed. When you have a floppy drive it'S easy to notice because it starts seeking.

[werty316]

If the external enclosure isn't on it won't show the HD in explorer, hence you would turn it on.

Does your external HD exclosure have an activity LED?

[DragonMaster]

I think that his HDD is on some kind on sleep mode after 5 mins idling, maybe is't still accessible?

[Enigmachine]

Ok let me be a bit clearer:

The enclosure is turned on, but the HD itself is powered down after idling for 5 minutes. I can tell it's powered down because of the blinking power indicator, the drive gets much cooler and I can't hear the vibration anymore.

Now, if I open a windows explorer that shows the drives, it will spin up (the icon never actually dissapears, because the software VERY CLEVERLY :???: does not let me unmount that usb device), that's relatively sensible I guess because it probably fetched the drive's icon from the HD.

My problem is, why does it also spin up from time to time even if I'm not using a windows explorer? Could I have a process that scans my hard drives at random? Is it an hostile process or just bad programming?

Anyways, I was just curious of a way to find out which process what doing this and if I could catch it in the act somehow...

I know, I know, I could just turn the thing off when I'm not using it, but that would make more work for me right? What's the point of a computer if you can't automate things? :)

[DragonMaster]

Every times you open an "Open" or "Save As" box and return to "My Computer" or click the box with all the drives it will, maybe Windows' file protection doing backups of recent changes is activated on this drive?
If the drive is shared, it could be an other computer,
maybe an anti-virus, etc.

[Kougar]

I think "bad programming" as you put it is what's going on. As ya said, going into My Computer will cause explorer to search for all connected storage devices, and that would wake it up. I believe using the "Send To" link off a context menu does the same thing as well, especially if you've customized yours with other drives. ;)

Anti-virus wouldn't be scanning the drive unless some other program tried to access a file off of it first, unless it was a active system scan.

[Enigmachine]

Actually I did a little bit of testing, and strangely enough the drive doesn't always spin up when I start a new windows explorer. Even if it's a folder that displays the drive.

But the drive spins up when I browse the web using Opera! Too weird.

[DragonMaster]

Even if it's a folder that displays the drive.
The content is in the RAM. The same thing happened with DOS, you could browse folders you recently went in on a floppy even once it was removed. When it spins up once you get in explorer, it's checking the removable drive names and free space.

But the drive spins up when I browse the web using Opera! Too weird.
Do you have any files that the computer needs when it's doing nothing? I think that you should try to run Opera without any background apps and see.

I was thinking that maybe an anti-virus autoscan or something like that. Hey, maybe that the Windows Disk Cleanup assistant is checking your free space?

[werty316]

Heres what I did, when I used an external HD enclosure: I turned it on when I needed to back stuff up; why even set it to "sleep" when you could just leave it off?

[DragonMaster]

No one seems to actually read what people write here : we get 5x the same reply from different persons, we get questions asked for things already specified :roll:, but at least we get answered. :mrgreen:

werty,
I don't want to turn it off completely, because I would most likely forget to turn it back on for the backups, and if I have to manually do something, it means my backup isn't automated, right? :D

[werty316]

Its pretty easy to understand, if you don't see the HD listed in windows explorer turn on the external enclosure; do your backups and shut it off. You won't see any of problems you are encountering if you do it manually and then turn it off when you are done ;)