This will cause the load/unload cycle count (LCC) to increase substantially. Western Digital Green drives may have an aggressive IntelliPark feature that parks the head after 8 seconds of inactivity. To open the task scheduler, in the command prompt or in a Start > Run dialog, type: taskschd.msc My Western Digital Elements 2 TB (WDBAAU0020HBK) external hard drive sleeps every 30 minutes.Īfter you have imported the task, you can configure the interval and schedule by using the task scheduler. This task is set up to run every 20 minutes. If you want to delete the task, type: schtasks /delete /tn "Keep Awake 1.01" /f Import the XML as a task: schtasks /create /tn "Keep Awake 1.01" /xml "KeepAwake101.xml" Start > All Programs > Accessories > Right click on "Command Prompt" > Run as administrator.Ĭhange to the directory where the XML file is located. On L:\, you can change this line to the location of your drive. On "\f", make sure that you modify this line by adding the location of the script. When you save the XML file, make sure that you save the file encoding as UTF-16 (labeled "Unicode" in Notepad). Next, save this XML file as KeepAwake101.xml: This script creates an empty file at the root of the current directory. Spaces and quotation marks have been removed from file names and version bumped to 1.01. This is an improved script of for Windows.ĮDIT: Windows 8 will not properly run scripts with spaces in their names, it keeps asking for the program to open with at each and every execution. no hidden 'features') and I suppose it also might give non-Windows folks a starting place for creating something for their platform.Īnyway, I know this is an answer to an old question, but it's where I found my first (and now supplanted) solution for keeping my external HD awake just a couple of months ago, so hopefully this solution will be of use to others-whether its a first solution for them or an improved one. You can see the source code on the project's page, which I like because it helps keep the program's behavior transparent (e.g. (I leave my work computer on all the time, so my drive never slept even when I was) It's possible to disable the keep-alive writing based on inactivity.You can customize settings per drive-including write intervals & enabling/disabling writes.is there no other way of programattically interacting with a drive to keep it awake than by writing a file?), but it offers the convenience of a graphical interface and adds a number of options-several of which I find very useful. Like many batch file solutions it periodically writes a file to the external HD (seriously. My preferred solution – that I've switched to at home and at work – is a free & open source app (Windows only) called KeepAliveHD : Thankfully I ran across something that I find more convenient to implement and tweak to my individual needs. I also wanted to fine-tune the behavior of the scripts, but I wasn't excited about spending the time to figure out how to go about it. I've been using the batch file approach to prevent my Western Digital external HDs from sleeping, but I wasn't a fan of the number of steps necessary to implement it-made worse since I had to do it with multiple drives. This method writes a text file of 1k at a 5 or 10 minute interval and prevents the HDD from entering idle mode. Now save this file (e.g.: spinning_hide.vbs note that spinning.bat is your batch file) at the location of the batch file and then run only the. vbs file with Notepad and put this script in it: Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") We must run the batch file in hidden mode:Ĭreate a. The problem is that when every task is executed the cmd window opens, again annoying :)) This operation writes a text file at 5 or 10 minutes and then rewrites that file over and over. bat) and restart that task at 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Run task scheduler from Windows and create a new task to run that batch file (. The batch file can be put on the problematic HDD or another partition. It may also damage the HDD.Ĭreate a batch file (with filename spinning.bat) in Notepad and put this script in it: echo a > d:\stop_spinning_down.txt It is irritating to wait for the HDD to spinning up. Spinning down at a period of 5 minutes or 10 is annoying if you work in Photoshop, Word or other programs and must save your work periodically. This is not always caused by power management in Windows sometimes it is caused by the hard drive firmware.
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