New Seagate 5TB external drive stays powered on (light, hum, vibration) for hours after the computer has been shut down

[kukov]

Hi folks,

Tried Googling this and searching these forums but not much has come up (other than a few XboxOne related posts).

Recently bought a new Segate 5TB Backup Plus drive - plugged it into my PC, started copying stuff over, it's working great.

HOWEVER, last night as I shut my computer down I noticed something strange - the drive stayed powered on. The activity light was a solid white colour and the drive seemed to be vibrating slightly (as if on or accessing). I thought maybe give it some time, went away for a few hours, and came back to find it in the exact same state.

Needless to say this has me worried - it appears the drive is just ALWAYS on while it's plugged in, even while the computer is off. Unlike my WD My Book drive which, thankfully, seems to be in sleep mode (while plugged in) and only "wakes up" when I access it. I suppose one solution would be to just unplug the USB cable (or power cable) when I don't need it, but that's kind of an annoying step - and absolutely shouldn't be necessary in this day and age for a mass storage-focused external drive.

I'm worried that the Seagate's life will be impacted by the fact that it's always on and humming / spinning. Or perhaps that's on purpose and a weird design feature and it will be fine?

Anyone have similar experiences? Advice?

Thanks in advance!

EDIT
Using Win 10

 

[JamesSneed]

Either the drive is faulty or your PC is supplying power to the USB ports even when off(some do this on certain ports for charging stuff like phones etc). I would plug something into the port when the PC is off and see if you are getting power. If its getting power try different USB ports to see if any are not supplying power then use that one.

 

[jsmithepa]

Yeah, after you pc shuts down, go ahead and unplug the usb cable see if that's the prob.

I don't like seagate anymore for this reason, they disabled all user's access and configuration for acoustic management.

 

[kukov]

Either the drive is faulty or your PC is supplying power to the USB ports even when off(some do this on certain ports for charging stuff like phones etc). I would plug something into the port when the PC is off and see if you are getting power. If its getting power try different USB ports to see if any are not supplying power then use that one.

Thanks for the help - this clued me into realizing that my motherboard does have a "charging port" and that the drive's USB cable was plugged into it. As soon as I swapped ports the problem was fixed. Thanks!

 

[kukov]

Yeah, after you pc shuts down, go ahead and unplug the usb cable see if that's the prob.

I don't like seagate anymore for this reason, they disabled all user's access and configuration for acoustic management.

Thanks for the help - figured it out - it was plugged into the motherboard's charging port. Swapped ports and it's all fine.

 

[kukov]

UPDATE

For anyone reading this in the future, I accidentally chose the wrong post for "pick a solution" - the solution should be to JamesSneed's post, not the following one - see my post above for explanation.