Auto power down an external USB drive?

I thought I had previously seen a utility program somewhere on the web that would allow the user to set a software timer that would power down an external USB drive after a certain number of minutes. But I couldn't find any such program this evening -- did an internet search and a search here at MG's too.

Has anyone seen such an external USB drive utility?

Or maybe it's not even possible and I just dreamt it?

 

http://www.softaward.com/9197.html

 

Windows has a power schedule for disk drive shutdown, but i think this really only applies to internal drives.

What brand is your external?
For Maxtor external 1394/USB2 drives, the newer one-touch configuration software that you can download from the maxtor website has the ability to customise the timeout period before the disks will turn off after a period of inactivity.
From memory the Seagate timeout (5min) is not configureable.

Regards....

 

Tunered, I took a look at that link but I didn't see anything in that program's description to indicate that it had the capability to power down an external USB drive. As the drive has its own power block plugged in directly, even if the computer is powered down automatically, the drive will still continue spinning. What I need is software that will tell the drive to stop spinning after a certain number of minutes without any drive activity. The external drive is only used for backup a couple of times per week and, consequently, I or my lady friend are liable to often forget to switch it off once we're finished using the computer on those days we happen to do a backup. And because it's powered by it's own transformer block plugged into the wall, even shutting down the computer doesn't power down the drive.

I'm reluctant to pay $25 for a program that, I suspect, doesn't really do what I need in my circumstances -- power down an external USB drive, or at least tell it to stop spinning. (There's probably no way to actually cut off the power to an external drive via 3rd party software given it's plugged directly into a wall power outlet -- or rather, it's transformer block is. My drive is a "cheapie" that I made from an internal drive mounted in an external USB case without any special software or power control features unfortunately -- hence my search for a "power down" utility for an external drive).

Nite Crawler, my external USB drive is a Maxtor, but it's a standard ATA internal drive that I mounted in a Mad Dog external USB case. It works fine, but doesn't have any special features that I might have gotten if I'd bought a "real" external Maxtor drive.

So still looking for a utility that will do the trick.

 

After i posted i began to think about that, been searching but so far have found nothing, will let you know if anything shows up, sorry. ed

 

How about a timer for a wall outlet?. ed

 

I am curious, what about a prog to turn off usb connections...or is that just me being a normal cwazy man?

 

The usb would shut it down from windows but it still wouldnt kill the 12volt power because i dont think its running off the same psu. ed

 

http://www.hottimesoftware.com/

 

I appreciate the various suggestions, but so far haven't seen exactly what I'm hoping to find...and maybe it's not possible with current USB technology without additional features in the external drive housing itself which mine doesn't have. (It's just a more-or-less plain vanilla USB2 drive housing with a small blue power/drive activity light and a rocker on/off switch.)

Even if there's a way to do it via software I don't think having the system stop all USB activity wouldn't help -- as I wrote earlier, my external USB drive gets it's power from it's own power block/transformer plugged into an AC outlet. It's not powered via the USB connection. If there's some means for the system to tell the drive itself to stop spinning, that's what I'm looking for.

I looked at the most recent link you posted Tunered, but that setup is more elaborate and expensive than what I was hoping to find. The setup in that link apparently requires the purchase of a transmitter which plugs into a computer's parallel or serial port and a receiver/switching device that my USB drive's power block would plug into, and then there's the control software I'd have to buy to run the setup. So too expensive and complicated, but thanks for the suggestion.

I'd like to find some software that does for external USB devices what can be done for an internal hard drive with the hard drive timer setting that you can reach via the "Power" button on the screensaver tab. Actually, a utility that would immediately just stop the USB drive from spinning would be satisfactory also. We're using Acronis True Image to do our backups and we could patch in a command to run the utility that tells the USB drive to shut down once the backup is complete, as ATI allows the user to list commands to be executed both before and after a pre-configured backup runs -- if only I could find such a utility.

For now we're using a low-tech solution -- a sticky note near the monitor with a reminder written on it. It's a very cheap solution, but doesn't always work! And, I suspect, after a few more days we'll begin not to notice it any more. Maybe we'll get into the habit of shutting off the drive before we get to the point we don't notice the reminder anymore.

Hmm...maybe the thing to do is write a text message and put in a post-backup command in the ATI setup to display the message on the screen -- "Backup finished -- Turn off the power to the USB drive!"

I'll see if I can do that.

 

The more simple solution might be running it off of the desktop psu, couldnt be that big of a deal ,and i think it would do what you are after. ed

 

It would be some work to get the external drive running off the computer's psu as the power to the external drive comes from a transformer "brick" that plugs into a regular AC outlet. And my computer doesn't have any "pass through" switched AC outlets on the back -- nor any unswitched ones for that matter. So I'd have to do some rewiring of some sort to get the external drive running off what? One of those four pronged power connectors designed to plug into an internal hard drive? Afraid that's way beyond my electrical knowledge. And even then, in addition, I'd have to run the wiring through the case to get it inside where I could plug it in. Afraid that does seem like rather a big deal.

But I may just throw in the towel and remove the drive from the external case and return, for a couple of months at least, to using it as an internal drive so that it powers up and down with the rest of the system.

I really like having an external drive that I can shut off when I wish, but afraid it's just going to be an obstacle to automated backups if my girlfriend doesn't remember to turn it on for the first boot on the day her weekly backup is scheduled and/or leaves it running all night because she forgets to turn it off when she shuts down the computer. I guess it's called "Catch 22."