does wdidle3 work on a usb external drive?

[GarSpear]

Does anyone know whether the wd tool wdidle3 works on an external drive? I know there is a green drive inside and I'd like to check the idle time (I presume it will be 8 seconds) and change it to 300 seconds.

I just thought I'd check before I open the enclosure to gain access to the drive inside...

Also, will formatting be quicker over sata than usb 3.0 or will there be no difference?

Apologies if the questions are dumb...

 

[popatim]

wdidle doesnt work on any of WD's drives anymore. Years ago when they found out people could turn off the spindown timer on their green drives they came out with new firmware which was 'idle-proof'.

 

[GarSpear]

Then why do so many still report success using the tool and the /r command apparently shows that they have been successful disabling or changing the idle time?

 

[popatim]

With some researching I've found that to partially true. It now works on some drives and not others.