Question New WD Elements External HDD power cycle every 20 seconds; Normal??

[Fred Wax Bean Lasagna]

Brand New WD Elements 6TB external hard drive starting/stopping every 20 seconds!

Is this NORMAL??

I just received a brand new WD Elements 6TB as a Christmas present. My previous WD Elements 3TB is apparently going bad (“caution” indicator on CrystalDiskInfo).

However, this new external hard drive is constantly cycling. it goes into “idle” mode for only 20 seconds, then starts up again and runs for 40 seconds.

I ran a stopwatch and timed the intervals for a few minutes. it shuts down for 20 seconds, and then starts/runs for 40 seconds…every time, like clockwork. exactly 20/40 second intervals.
It seems there is no way this is normal, when I’m not accessing the external hard drive, it’s just sitting there connected to laptop, I’m not reading/copying anything to/from it. Why does it need to run every 20 seconds, if it's not being used?

See Youtube video here: it shows the cycling.

View: https://youtu.be/FgjZFNr1PgE

Also, kinda makes a weird noise when it stops spinning. (in the video you can hear it at the 5 second mark, and at the 1:05 minute mark. Is that normal?

I ran a WD diagnostic tool (WD Lifeguard diagnostic) of the HDD, (quick scan), I also included CyrstalDiskInfo results. It passed.


Thanks in advance.

 

[punkncat]

It appears that Crystal is showing various issue with the drive, but admittedly I am not an expert at reading their results. Given the behaviour and the fact that it's new, I would send it back and try again.

 

[Fred Wax Bean Lasagna]

I downloaded the WD Driver Utility Tool, to see if I needed to update drivers, or change sleep settings etc. Unfortunately, the stupid WD driver utility tool doesn't see the WD Elements external hard drive. It just doesn't appear at all.

 

[Fred Wax Bean Lasagna]

Well, I may have "fixed" the problem. At least for my laptop. I went into Device Manager, expanded "Universal Serial Bus controllers"

I right clicked on "USB Mass Storage Device" and clicked on Properties.

Then under the Power Management tab, I unchecked "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

This has kept the external hard drive from cycling every 20 seconds. I guess the computer was putting the external drive into sleep mode, but why so quickly? after 40 seconds of running? WTF.

Since I will only have this HDD attached to my laptop when I am backing up, I don't need the external drive to sleep at all, so I guess this has solved the problem. But I'm a bit OCD lol. What if I DID want this External HDD to be connected to a computer all the time?

I have a Desktop with a WD My Book external hard drive connected all the time. I will now have to investigate if that drive is cycling the same way.

Sure would be nice for Western Digital to have a utility program that recognized their own products

 

[SkyNetRising]

What if I DID want this External HDD to be connected to a computer all the time?

Then you connect drive internally - with sata cables. You'd have to remove it from external enclosure for that.