Enclosures...spin down, or just power off

Captain Chunk · 07-24-2008, 08:58 PM

Hi..

I've recently purchased a firewire/usb enclosure from Cooldrives.com

All three drives I've put in it...1 Western Digital and 2 Seagates mount on the computer and work just fine. These are all brand new drives...ATA133

The problem arises when I'm done with. I'll eject the drive, and while it unmounts the heads never park and the drive never spins down leaving me to just fiip the power switch on the back of the drive enclosure.

I emailed the "tech" people at cooldrives.com and they said that this particular enclosure does not offer the spin down feature and that powering off via the switch is the only way to go.

Does this sound right? Is this safe for the drives? I thought all drives should be spun down and parked before cutting power.

Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Thanks folks

CC

~~wiseleo~~ · 07-25-2008, 12:08 AM

Yep. That's right. You can choose to spin down the drive manually using available software. Don't ask me what that software is. :)

When you power off the drive, the heads will auto-park anyway. The "eject" simply flushes Windows disk cache onto the drive.

Captain Chunk · 07-25-2008, 06:43 PM

Cool thanks. So spinning down and powering off are the same thing.

I guess I'm going based on experience with 2.5" external bus powered drives, where if they don't spin down, when you pull them from the computer, cutting their power, you can clearly hear the click/clunk.

07-24-2008, 08:58 PM	#1 (permalink)
Captain Chunk Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 2 OS: Mac OS 10.5.4	Enclosures...spin down, or just power off Hi.. I've recently purchased a firewire/usb enclosure from Cooldrives.com All three drives I've put in it...1 Western Digital and 2 Seagates mount on the computer and work just fine. These are all brand new drives...ATA133 The problem arises when I'm done with. I'll eject the drive, and while it unmounts the heads never park and the drive never spins down leaving me to just fiip the power switch on the back of the drive enclosure. I emailed the "tech" people at cooldrives.com and they said that this particular enclosure does not offer the spin down feature and that powering off via the switch is the only way to go. Does this sound right? Is this safe for the drives? I thought all drives should be spun down and parked before cutting power. Please correct me if I'm wrong! Thanks folks CC

07-25-2008, 12:08 AM	#2 (permalink)
~~wiseleo~~ Troubled Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: San Francisco Bay Area Posts: 461 OS: Win 2003 SP2 My System	Re: Enclosures...spin down, or just power off Yep. That's right. You can choose to spin down the drive manually using available software. Don't ask me what that software is. :) When you power off the drive, the heads will auto-park anyway. The "eject" simply flushes Windows disk cache onto the drive.

07-25-2008, 06:43 PM	#3 (permalink)
Captain Chunk Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 2 OS: Mac OS 10.5.4	Re: Enclosures...spin down, or just power off Cool thanks. So spinning down and powering off are the same thing. I guess I'm going based on experience with 2.5" external bus powered drives, where if they don't spin down, when you pull them from the computer, cutting their power, you can clearly hear the click/clunk.