anyone who is having this problem should post the make and model of thier drive just to help weed out which drives are going into sleep mode if we cant find an app to fix this problem

On mac it should be easy enough to write a bash script something like

#!/bin/bash
TEST=0
FILE="/path/to/file/on/harddrive"
while [ $TEST -lt 1 ]; do
rm -rf $FILE
touch $FILE
sleep 250
done

I'm sure you could do something equally similar in vb for windows.

DIM fso, File
Do While 1>0
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set File = fso.CreateTextFile("E:\filename", True)
File.Close
WScript.Sleep 250000
Loop

I'm sure somebody else can tweak these, the windows one will run in the background, you'll want to run them both with low priority although I doubt a simple file write will affect SSL.

From a different thread

Update: The given dl-address is outdated, you can dl the app here www.rt-sw.de

To add:
What it does is simply accesing random diskblocks from your harddisk, this is necessary to prevent loading cached data which could still make your HD spin down due to inactivity. It runs with windows XP.

Just curious why the XP power settings wouldn't affect this...do the drive controllers on some external enclosures themselves throw the drives into sleep mode?

nik39

Thank you for taking the time to find this application for us, much appreciated.

It does appear to have been developed a little too much for our needs unfortunately in the latest version.

If I'm not mistaken the version I've read about at www.notebookforums.com allows you to set the interval time to the random blocks it accesses.

The latest version that is available to download only appears to work on internal IDE drives (Not external USB drives) and you can't set the interval time.
We only require the hard drive to access a random block at approximately 10 minute intervals.

I was wondering if you may have an earlier version for download that will work on external drives and enable the user to set the time interval to access the random block?

I own a Seagate 400gb external USB2.0 drive Model#:ST3400601U2-RK
that goes into sleep mode after 15 minutes of inactivity.
I have spoken to Seagate and they have told me there is no way to disable this feature.
I recently looked into getting an external Western Digital drive however after speaking to there Technical support team and DJ-Supernatural I discovered that all there external drives go into sleep mode after 10 minutes of inactivity.

So far it appears that the only manufacturer of external drives that allow you to disable the 'spin down, sleep or power save mode' is Maxtor and I believe this is only on there 'One Touch' range of drives.

Thanks to DJ-Supernatural for his help on this subject.
As he has pointed out, the sleep mode isn't a problem for all Serato users. It is only really a problem for DJ's who use normal CD's and Vinyl in there sets and are not constantly accessing there hard drives. Hence they go to sleep and spin down into a power save mode.

I'm not a PC or Mac techy, however I reckon nobspangle is onto something.
If nik39 is unable to find an earlier version of the silent drive application can someone who has the knowledge write us all a little program please?

All we need the program to do is access a random block of data on our external USB or Firewire drives at a user defined interval.

I make it sound so simple!!!

Thanks in advance
DJ SirLecta

I've passed an old version (I am not sure if we talk about the same app!) to Supernatural, he should find it somewhere in his mailbox. Else than that I do have the authorization from the original author of the app to modify the source code - if anyone knows delphi I will pass along the source.

Can't you just write a script or schedule a task that will do a DIR or LS command (on a small or empty directory)? That way no files are written.

Caching is the problem. Your HD may cache the DIR/LS, not move the head and put the HD to spin down.

Right. Forgot about that.

Thats still the wrong link :( Sorry, I will check it out later.

why is it that my two hitachi ext. hds don't fall asleep?

what manufacturers have this? i think i saw somewhere here that seagate does this

DJ_Mike_Coquilla

Some external drives do and some don't.
Maxtor drives have a rather nice 'Power mangement' feature that lets the user decide the period of inactivity before they spin down.

As dyvrs said in his post earlier in this thread:


I own a Seagate 400GB USB2.0 external with 16MB cache that 'spins down' after 15 minutes of inactivity.
I have also dicovered that all Western Digital external drives 'spin down' after 10 minutes of inactivity.

If you could post the exact details of your two Hitachi external drives that don't fall asleep, this information would also be useful to users when looking for an external hard drive.

Cheers
DJ SirLecta

will do.

Nearly every hard drive manufactured in the last few years has an option in it's firmware to ignore requests from the OS, telling it to go into sleep mode. Once you change it in the firmware the drive will remember it between reboots and power downs. Once the option is set, the drive spins full speed, all day long not matter what the OS says.

On Linux, it's dead simple to set these options using the hdparm command. Not sure about how to do it under Windows or Mac though. There may be a hdparm for OS X that has been ported from Linux. Not sure though. You can always boot from a Linux boot disk and set the parameters. You can also set other cool stuff like cache algorithms, DMA modes and other stuff too, or just peak at the "counters" to see stuff like how many hours your drive has been in use or whatever. Of course a tool giving you low level access to your drive like this, will allow you to screw it up too if you don't know what you're doing.

anewsome


A couple of questions:
1) Could this be done to an external USB hard drive or can this only be done on internal IDE drives?
2) I know nothing about Linux or the hdparm command. If I was to show your post to someone who was familiar with using Linux. Are they likely to know about the hdparm command and be able to set my USB external drive to: "spin full speed, all day long not matter what the OS says?"

I apologise if question #2 sounds a little stupid and can appreciate that it depends greatly on the familiarity my friend has with Linux.
Unfortunately for me when people start talking about DOS and Linux I haven't a clue what they're on about.
What I'm trying to establish is if it requires an in depth knowledge of Linux or just basic.

Cheers
DJ SirLecta

I fell ya SirLecta...Linux = Greek.

Thanks for the help anewsome... I have the same issue.

I'm using this external hard drive:

maxtor external 200gb drive

I've had a total of 3 crashes. It's always been with a different file and never could get it to crash with the same file again. So I was starting to come to the conclusion that the hard drive would go into sleep mode. I came to this conclusion because of the way it crashed. The entire screen would freeze, the music would stop, then it would crash. Then I would just restart the application and everything would be fine.

Now this is just my best educated guess. I could be waaaaayyyy off...

actually, now that I think of it, the hdparm command only works for IDE/EIDE type devices. that usually means drives connected to an internal bus with IDE/EIDE type cabling. these type of drives are typically internal. they have device names like /dev/hda for hard drive one and /dev/hdb for hard drive two and so on. hdparam *may* be hardwired to only work with device names like /dev/hda, /dev/hdb.

the way that linux handles USB external drives, are like hotplug scsi drives, as far as command set, device names and so on. so external USB drives get names like /dev/sda and /dev/sdb and so on. Since these names typically represent real scsi devices, hdparm might not be able to work on them.

so to answer your question,.. i don't know. none of my drives/OS combinations ever go to sleep so i haven't had to research this. i'm sure someone has though. try asking your friend who is a linux guy. he might know.

Anyone found anything that will work on USB external hard drives???

Bump

Looks like we may have to go with MAXTOR.

There must be some way of keeping them spinning.

Where are you Serato Sam? You started this thread.
Surely this forum isn't the only resource the Serato team have.

I can't believe that Serato can create such a fantastic product as SSL yet they don't have the knowledge of how to keep an external USB hard drive spinning!

I'm gobsmacked.

DJ SirLecta

Bump

I'm going to do some asking around...

I did a little digging... on mac, one of the best solutions I've seen is to setup a cron job that runs every 4 minutes and do something not really taxing... such as a top-level directory listing. i'm not sure what the equivalent of cron on windows would be if anything?

This is something that easily be built-into SSL imo.

Has nobody tried the scripts I posted?

I would but unfortunately I'm not that technical and would need some more instruction.

Same here.
I'd love to be able to use your scripts.
Unfortunately to me it looks like something scary my mate would do in DOS.
I must point out that DOS scares me because the first PC I owned was Win98.

The mate I refer to may be able to help me with a little more instruction also.

Cheers.

Maybe you could call the geek squad?

or their direct competitor 'nerds-r-us'

open notepad and paste the following into it.



Find the line:- Set File = fso.CreateTextFile("E:\empty.txt", True)
Now replace the E:\ with the letter for your external drive.

Choose file->Save As
Save the file to the desktop, call it "RunHardDrive.vbs"

Now double click the file on the desktop, it will run in the background, you should see it on the process list as wscript.exe if you open task manager. Every 250 seconds the script will create a file called empty.txt on the harddrive.

is 250 seconds the cutoff threshold of no activity dictating when to sleep or not?

nonspangle did you think of that all by yourself? your a fucking genious

It's usually about 5 minutes, I've no idea if the script will even work I don't have a drive to test it on.

DJ Reese has a Seagate 400Gb ext. hd (got it at Fry's Electronice) we'll give it a try (but he has used it with no problems for over 5 shows.) Thanks Nobspangle...we'll post our findings.

...btw, correct me if i'm wrong... the way we can confirm that this indeed works is to watch the 'empty.txt' file in the E:\ drive updates every 4.1 minutes (at every 250 seconds).... i guess to speed up the verification, i could temporarily shorten it down to 30000 to check if the file overwrites every 30 seconds

Cachinggggg! Found it! hey thanks guys. This post just made my week. lol

I see u Mike Coquilla! Thanks ma man!

Nobs/Nik:

The .vbs file works great by following the directions above! No need to install anything.

When you get to your gig just click the file, or in my case I am going to save it to the My documents folder and just have a nice looking shortcut to it from my Start bar. I can launch the no_sleep.vbs file from there and not have a problem again.

5580K is the amount of memory that wscript.exe demands, more than I thought, but way worth the cause! THANKS!!!!

PS: I have one of the gray Seagate 300GB USB/FW combo drives. It falls asleep every FIVE minutes! Crazy!

I'll give it a try also. Glad to hear it's workin!

An alarm clock would do the trick.

www.djstuart.com.ar

You know what you are even able to do? Just save the file INSIDE the external and that way it does not reside just on your local computer or notebook, it resides wherever your little trouble maker is performing at that night! HAHA! Its working just fine from what I can tell directly from the external.

www.djbis.com

a ha!

seek and u shall find :)

so it really works huh? good deal!

BIS kickin it up a notch :)

Yeah Mike! Thank YOU for directing me. Without the right keyword ("batch") I would not have found it! Cause trust me I did ALL sorts of searches! here and on google.

I have been using it consistently and its sweet!

smack my 'batch' up :)

Thanks nobspangle... seems to be working good.

Saved it to my external. Nice work... VARSITY!

I been loving it.

I know this is an old topic, but was wondering if others have had success with using the above technique for sleeping externals? Thanks.

its the tits dude.

you can just add it in startup as a batch file

save the file in your desktop
drag the icon in
start > all programs > startup

the program will execute everytime you start windows

or mix before the 5 minute is up!

If that doesn't help, I don't know what will... lol

no help from western digital support
====================================

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.

I am sorry, but the sleep mode is not a configurable option that can be enabled or disabled.

Sincerely,
Don S.
Western Digital Service and Support
support.wdc.com
====================================

Didn't nobspangles tip help?

Ral, Seagate said the exact same thing. There are no firmware, hardware or OS configurations available to fix your problem, at least not on these drives.

Just trying to save you time... ;)

What about LaCie external drives?

lacie doesnt have this issue as i know.

It depends on the drivers that they include with the drive, and also the firmware. In all truth having this "sleep" system in the drive is smart because it extends the life of your drive.

Many drives out there do not have this feature which in turn allows you to leave them on, and as long as they are on they will spin and spin, wearing critical parts in them which will eventually cause them to fail. We don't want that.

Having this little script puts us int he best of both worlds and allows us to use the drives in a way that best suits our needs.

PS: AcomData drives do not go to sleep either (I got two).

ral?

o, i havent tried it yet, but i guess it will work. thanks for the concern.

in a live gig, i havent noticed wd 500gb drive sleeping on me. maybe because i mix before 5 mins??

when surfin/blah blah, while the drive is connected, yeah the drive sleeps, and the ssl screen/mp3s are still loaded though, the drive will wake up as soon as i CTRL O (play an mp3)

well..

Yours may be set to 8-10 min. Its a posibility I guess.

redbull, but make sure the hard drive doesn't fly away

So how do I do this For my Macbook? (and 100gb G-Drive mini combo)

OK, I don't own a mac so I've not tested this one, what you need to do is create a text file with this in it make sure the /path/to/file/on/harddrive points to the drive you need to keep alive. Then you will need to make the script executable (i.e. chmod 755) Then run it.
I'm not sure what text editor you have on a mac, hopefully someone who owns a mac will chip in with some better instructions.

Has anyone used this with I/O Magic External HDs? Also how do you do this for windows? Like copy and paste what he wrote and then??

after you've pasted it into notepad

***bump***

Here is the solution, a little program called "My Drive Is Spinning".

www.zshare.net

This is for PC.

Where does that program come from Julls? Are you allowed to distribute it?

I think its coming from softjock.com, check
www.ourdjtalk.com <- click.

However the legality of the previous link is still uncertain.

It came from another DJ forum. I didn't think there was a problem if I shared it here. Maybe I should have asked first.



I took the file down. If anyone wants the program, they can go here to get it: www.ourdjtalk.com

Good look Julls... let's see if it works.

did anyone ever test this script on a mac? successful?

well did it work?
out of curiousity i downloaded the program. ran it on my vista main (c) drive for 1 min and getting a Error creating temp file message??? so dont think it's working on (c) drive or vista system???

anyone get the same

Can anyone please re-up this?

ok tried it out on my wd & maxtor drives seem to do the trix.

here's the link phooka

STRIGHT DL: www.softjock.com

ZIP FILE DL: www.softjock.com


you can read more about it here
www.ourdjtalk.com

Awesome, much appreciated. I tried googling it but nothing came up.

^^np Phooka anytime man!!

anyone got something for MAC?

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead,



www.mosaicwebsite.com

Nice one dude.

Cool, thx Konix

nosleephd.codeplex.com

Hah! Buddyloveeeee!

Bis....:)
Where My Kuts? :(

Processing as we speak!

This looks like the solution right here. Here is a FREE program called KEEP DRIVE SPINNING for MAC.
CHECK IT!

www.macupdate.com

Here is also a solution for the windows users a small utility call NoSleepHD.its an open source program and Free. check their website and download it. Its very simple and works great.Here is the Link nosleephd.codeplex.com info about the program but best is to visit their website thou. :::::NoSleepHD is a simple program which writes an empty text file every few minutes to your external hard disk drive(s) to keep it from going into auto-sleep mode.

here is the proper solution ...no third party software installation risk..

first-pakistan.blogspot.com