Sharkoon USB 3 Dock inactivity control?

MilesAhead · Mar 31, 2010

I got a new Sharkoon USB 3.0 Docking Station today. Works fine but I notice while using it with a WD2000 200 GB Sata drive, if inactive for about 10 mintues it will spin the drive down. No software comes with it so I'm not sure if it can be configured to stay spun up.

I'd like to use it as a source for video files with the output going to my HD or vice versa.. but it will be a pain if I have to manually kick up the drive in Explorer before doing everything.

The only setting I can find is for the SIIG USB 3.0 card in Device Manager. I already have it set for Performance. Seems to make no difference though. The drive still spins down after 10 minutes. I am using High Performance Power Profile. Nothing is set to spin down. Seems like it's hard wired someplace.

MilesAhead · Mar 31, 2010

I tried letting a WD 750 GB Caviar Black sit for 10 minutes and it didn't spin down. So it must be a power saver setting on the internal drive rather than the Sharkoon. Just have to find out how to get some software to manipulate the power saver setting I think.

Anyone know if it's generic or do I need an old utility from WD?

edit: it just made a liar out of me. Just spun down the Caviar Black. Seems to be no way to control it. Must be a Sharkoon-ism.

Katokato · Mar 31, 2010

uncheck the optimize for quick removal option thing, cant recall where u go to do that though sorry.

MilesAhead · Mar 31, 2010

Yeah, I set Performance in device manager that enables write caching. So far it seems to respond ok. If I have a video that's on the drive in the dock in a player and click Play, the times I've tried it, it just spins up and plays rather than giving an error. Maybe there's been progress since I bought my Seagate external USB drives. If I can't control it not the end of the world. As long as it kicks in without timing out it's cool.

Thanks for the reply.

bobob21 · Nov 20, 2011

Does your HDD actually spin down when connected to a USB3.0 port?!

I have a WD20EARS HDD in the Sharkoon USB3.0 enclosure. No matter what I do, it does not spin down (even when the computer is shut down). By coincidence, I found out if I connect the drive to a USB2.0 port, Windows is able to put in sleep mode (spin down, according to the Power settings)

Has anybody got a USB3.0 connected drive that does spin down? I am not sure if this is a problem of the SATA-USB3.0 controller of Sharkoon, or my motherboard.

MilesAhead · Nov 20, 2011

I don't know what to tell you. I use Sharkoon USB 3.0 docking station. Not an enclosure. I have my power settings set to Never Never. I didn't want it to spin down. In fact I wrote a program to keep it awake.

When I bought the Sharkoon dock it didn't say anything about an idle time out. No setting to disable it. Seems like they may have some issues.

At this point I only use the Sharkoon dock as a backup since the timing out creates problems. I use SIIG USB 3.0 controllers and docking stations.

bobob21 · Nov 21, 2011

Thanks for getting back to this thread.

Although we have the opposite goal (I want the disk to spin down, you want it to keep it spinning), I believe it comes for us both down to being able to control this feature.

The strange thing is, that in my case it keeps spinning. I would expect that in your case it would also do this. Now that I have updated the drivers (NEC/Renesas), Windows still can not control this behaviour through the power settings, but the HDDControl utility is able to spin down/up the drive.

What program/script are you using to keep the drive spinning?

MilesAhead · Nov 21, 2011

It's a tray app called DriveAlive that creates or deletes a file on specified drives every 5 minutes. Just to create "keep alive" activity. It has nothing to do with drive settings.

bobob21 · Nov 21, 2011

Hmmm...that is not going to help me. Guess I need a Drive-Dead app ;-)

Thanks though.

MilesAhead · Nov 21, 2011

Have you looked online for a Sharkoon products forum? I know they are based in Germany but they may have an English forum on the web.

bobob21 · Nov 22, 2011

Good idea. I was quite sure that it was a motherboard issue, so only updated those drivers/firmware. Via the website of Sharkoon I now also updated the firmware of the enclosure itself. Alas, it did not solve my problem. The drive keeps on spinning if it is connected to a USB3.0 port. Strange thing is, that if I google this problem, the only hits I get is people having the same problem as you: they do not want it to spin down. Odd that in my case this is actually the default behaviour!

Sharkoon doesn't have a forum. I emailed the support. Hopefully they can help me further, though I doubt it. If all the drivers/firmware is updated on both sides, what more options do I have?

Something else, do you know if it is bad to kill the power of the enclosure (with the switch on the back side) if the drive is still spinning? And what if the heads are NOT parked yet? (in search of a solution I flashed my WD drive to park the heads not after the default of 8 sec., but after 5 minutes. Many users say that is better, but now I understand that is a whole different issue).

MilesAhead · Nov 22, 2011

My WD drives never spin down. I flush the data to disk and power them down. Haven't had any issues.

Sharkoon USB 3 Dock inactivity control?

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