[SOLVED] External hard disk still running after turning off the machine

spiri13 · 07-14-2016, 06:21 AM

Hi,

My Linux is installed on an external hard disk, connected to my laptop.
Every time, when I turn off the machine, the external hard disk is still running for at least 10 to 20 minutes.

Is there a setting to immediately power off the hard disk, after I turn off the machine?

PS: I have no access to the BIOS, because the screen of my laptop is damaged.

AwesomeMachine · 07-14-2016, 06:48 AM

Some machines power the USB ports after poweroff. The light on the external drive may stay on during this time. But just feel with your fingertips to see if the drive is actually doing anything but spinning.

spiri13 · 07-14-2016, 06:58 AM

Ok, but which job my drive is doing the last 10 minutes after I turn off the machine?
So it is not possible to immediately power off the external hard disk without to drag out the cable?
Can I drag out the cable without damaging something?

It sucks sometimes when I go to bed and the hard disk is still running.

af7567 · 07-14-2016, 08:56 AM

Does your external hard disk get power from the USB port or does it have a separate power supply plugged in?

spiri13 · 07-14-2016, 09:45 AM

It has an USB port for connecting it to my laptop and a power supply, too.

af7567 · 07-14-2016, 10:17 AM

It sounds like the external disk runs on its own power supply all the time and puts the spinning disk to sleep after a period of inactivity. Once your laptop is completely shut down then nothing should be accessing that disk so it is safe to turn it off. Some of those external disks have a power button at the back you can just switch off instead of unplugging cables.

You might also be able to configure the inactivity period so that the disk sleeps sooner, either with the hdparm utility or with software created by the manufacturer.

spiri13 · 07-14-2016, 11:17 AM

Ok, thank you for all the useful information!

spiri13 · 07-14-2016, 12:53 PM

I tried to set the advanced power management feature (am I right?) using hdparm, but it isn't working.

I tried the following code:

Code:

sudo hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda2

and the output is

Code:

 setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
 APM_level	= not supported

The man page says

Code:

[...]values 128 through 254 (which do not permit spin-down)[...]

I don't understand English very well, but I think this is what I was searching for.
Am I on the correct place in the man page?

How do I completely turn off this period of spinning using hdparm?

af7567 · 07-14-2016, 01:55 PM

I think the option you want is hdparm -S there also maybe another option to check the current setting of the standby time. I can't see the options at the moment because I am on my phone

spiri13 · 07-14-2016, 02:09 PM

I executed the following code:

Code:

hdparm -S 0 /dev/sda{1..2}

then I powered off the machine, waited for 10 seconds, but the drive was still running.

Here is the output:

Code:

/dev/sda1:
 setting standby to 0 (off)
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

/dev/sda2:
 setting standby to 0 (off)
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Don't know what to do now...

EDIT: I also tried the -Y option, which says

Code:

Force  an  IDE  drive to immediately enter the lowest power consumption sleep mode, causing it to shut down completely.

But I achieve the same result.

af7567 · 07-14-2016, 02:23 PM

Oh i forgot to say last time you should probably need to run the command on the whole disk so /dev/sda (not 1 or 2). It has been a long time since i used this command though so i don't know if it even works on new disks.

spiri13 · 07-14-2016, 02:29 PM

My external hard disk is ~10 years old

But, unfortunately, this still doesn't solve my problem...

af7567 · 07-14-2016, 05:28 PM

If it is that old then it probably is just something designed to be turned off manually when you don't need it anymore

If you are sure that your laptop is shutdown completely (no more lights on) then it should be safe to flick the power switch or unplug the power supply of your external disk.

spiri13 · 07-14-2016, 05:33 PM

Ok, thank you for the reply.