Thinkpads Forum

I recently added another external USB hard drive, this one is different from others I have used, and so I have two questions. I bought a separate disk drive and enclosure, and put these together. The hard drive is this model from Western Digital, and the enclosure is this model from Adaptec.

Q1: In other external USB drives I use (this one for example), when I disconnect the drive (via the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in the taskbar), the drive stops -- I can hear in a quiet environment, and I can feel it stop spinning. If I stop the drive, pull the USB cable, do not power it off, and later plug the USB cable back into the laptop, the drive spins up again. But, in the new WD/Adaptec combination, when I remove the USB cable, the drive does not stop spinning. So, when XP says it's safe to remove, I pull the USB connector from the laptop, but after doing so I can feel and hear the drive still spinning. The only way I see to stop the drive is to flip the power switch on the back of the enclosure. In this correct behvior, and is there some provision to safely park the disk heads when power to the drive is abruptly shutoff? (The old DOS SHIPTRAK command comes to mind.)

Q2: I'm curious about a statement in the hard drive's Install Instructions, under Drive Handling Information, it says "Do not stack hard drives or stand your Western Digital hard drive on its edge.". That sounds odd, because almost all USB enclosures I've seen picture the drive vertically. Does anyone think this is important, or is it incorrect?

I have one of those "new" WD harddrives with fluid bearings....if you "wiggle"it around the drive with "move" in the opposite way. It's a pretty cool feeling. But when I read into it, I found "it can cause drive issues".....but has anything happened? No.

IMHO, Some of those warnings are just to cover their [censored]....I stack my external on it's side, upside down, and it's dangled from the cord once or twice.....no issues.......

Can that hurt it? Maybe
Has it? Nope


-Toe

XCoalMiner:

I can guess on what is happening in your Q1 question. The maxtore system comes with some software that you loaded when you first purchased it. I'll even bet that it fires up at startup of your system. The software when it sees you disconnect the drive via "Safely Remove Hardware" function, sends a command to the enclosure to power down the drive. Your new enclosure has no such software so the drive doesn't spin down.

The best thing to do when you want to disconnect the drive via Safely Remove SOftware, is when XP gives you the message, POWER the Drive down first, and then remove the cables. This will protect your external drive hardware (Drive and Enclosure) and also protect your USB interface.

Oh also on your Q2 - I don't have the same drive, but I have 2 WD's and a Maxstore in external enclosures all on their sides for over two years with no problelms.


Storage_man

storage_man,

Thanks, very insightful. I did load some software for the maxtor onetouch drive, but forgot all about that.

I did not load any of the software from WD or Adaptec for the new drive. Adaptec in particular, the only software on the accompayning CD is for USB/Win98. WD only supplied utils that appear to be for when the drive is mounted internally in a desktop on an IDE bus, ... although I'll take another look. On second thought, I guess the drive enclosure, from the drive's point of view, is essentially an IDE bus, too.

I'm still not clear on something. It is normal for these USB external disk drives to be shut off/spun down via simply turning off the power switch?

XCoalMiner wrote:I'm still not clear on something. It is normal for these USB external disk drives to be shut off/spun down via simply turning off the power switch?

Yes.

Regards,

James