Arch Linux

entel

Member

Registered: 2008-09-13

Posts: 13

External HDD SATA shutdown?

Hi!

I have an external SATA drive, connected in USB.

When I umount it, the disc continues turning on.
How i can shutdown it?

(sorry, very bad english)

fukawi2

Ex-Administratorino

From: .vic.au

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 6,224

Website

Re: External HDD SATA shutdown?

The only way to "shutdown" the hard drive if it's USB powered is to unplug it.

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fede

Member

Registered: 2007-06-29

Posts: 126

Re: External HDD SATA shutdown?

I have observed the same thing. The funny thing, though, is that in the case of my HD, windows will shut it down correctly after unmounting each time. So it is possible, but I'm at a loss about how it's done in linux.

entel

Member

Registered: 2008-09-13

Posts: 13

Re: External HDD SATA shutdown?

I have observed the same thing. The funny thing, though, is that in the case of my HD, windows will shut it down correctly after unmounting each time. So it is possible, but I'm at a loss about how it's done in linux.

The same problem here, windows 1, arch 0... dams..

If i unplug the USB cable, the disk does not switch off.

fede

Member

Registered: 2007-06-29

Posts: 126

Re: External HDD SATA shutdown?

Well, my usb disks always switched off by unplugging the usb cable, only that windows avoids that by telling it to shut down when unmounted, which is neat, and maybe better for the device (the sound is gentler, anyway)?

Strange, must be different with your device.

entel

Member

Registered: 2008-09-13

Posts: 13

Re: External HDD SATA shutdown?

Note: this is a 3,5'' HDD with own power supply...

dav7

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-02-08

Posts: 674

Re: External HDD SATA shutdown?

I've figured out the solution to this problem after doing a lot of googling - it's the fact that winfailure sends the USB port the device is on into standby, while Linux doesn't, since unmounting a device doesn't imply you don't want to remount it later.

There is a way to send the USB port into standby in arch, but it's a lot harder than it needs to be: in Arch's stock kernel, some pathnames don't line up very closely, while Ubuntu's customized kernel has these same paths given very similar names, so it's a lot easier for Ubuntu to manage this.

-dav7

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fede

Member

Registered: 2007-06-29

Posts: 126

Re: External HDD SATA shutdown?

Yes, if I recall correctly, Ubuntu used to copy windows' behaviour some time ago, it had an "eject" option which behaved just like windows. But then they removed this functionality, I thought it was a new bug; so it seems not sending into standby is the correct behaviour, then.