Re: Stopping USB HDD

[Riza Dindir <riza.dindir%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hello Jason,

On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 6:42 PM Jason Mitchell <jmitchel%bigjar.com@localhost> wrote:
>
> On 8/24/21 11:25 AM, Riza Dindir wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> > When I power off the system (with poweroff) the connected USB HDD
> > makes a noise that comes from the heads. A distinct clicking noise.
> >
> > I wanted to know if there is a way, when powering off the system, any
> > usb hdd drive that is connected to the system be stopped properly, and
> > the disk heads are parked?
> >
> > On windows there is a disconnect usb drive menu item in the system
> > tray for the usb drive. Something similar on netbsd?
> >
> > Best Regards
> > Riza Dindir
>
> Riza,
>
> Today's Hard Drives all park their heads automatically. As for, the
> "disconnect usb drive task in Windows", just detaches the hard drive
> from the OS. So the clicking noise you hear is caused by the commands
> sent to the HD from the OS. I think that Windows says "I'm done talking
> to you" and the drive decides to park its heads.
>
> The NetBSD equivalent would be un-mounting the drive (umount). If you're
> writing to the drive outside of the filesystem (very rare except for
> fdisk, disklabel, and creating wedges), then the sync command will make
> sure that all data is written to all disks. The command won't complete
> until this is done. If you're paranoid like me, you can type it multiple
> times :)

Yes I am a bit concerned about that noise. It does not sound right
when a drive clicks,
even if it is when powering down. i have used shutdown yesterday, and
wait a minute
or so before powering down the laptop using its power button, after
shutdown and did
not hear that noise. Will be using shutdown.

I am also thinking of writing a script to get the drive to stop/sleep
with a script as
Mark (MJ) pointed out in another reply. As this is my drive that has
the OS in it,
for now, until i solve the issue with the hdd caddy i have.

>
> HTH,
>
> Jason M.
>

Kind Regards,
Riza