External FW Drive Spindown

[robogobo]

I have a small, no-name 2.5" firewire drive enclosure that is bus powered, plugged into a 15" aluminum powerbook. It has no Mac drivers, and seems to not conform to the power settings in the Energy Saver pref or in Cocktail. The problem is this: When the Powerbook is plugged into its power adapter, the hard drive never spins down, even when the PB is put to sleep. But when it's running off battery power, it will spin down when put to sleep (but still not at the energy saver/Cocktail intervals). Of course, in either case the drive powers down when the PB is shut down.

So how can I get the drive to spin down or power down when plugged into the adapter? I usually just put the machine to sleep at night, and my other 4 external drives (3.5" Oxford 911) have never had this problem.

[trevor]

You don't have a lot of options here. This type of behavior is controlled by the external drive's firmware. What exactly is reported by System Profiler about the external drive? Please show us the full report.

Trevor

[robogobo]

FireWire Bus:

Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec

WD1200VE-00KWT0:

Manufacturer: Initio
Model: 0x0
GUID: 0x1010050000075E
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
WD1200VE-00KWT0 Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x235
Product Revision Level: 2.35
Sub-units:
WD1200VE-00KWT0 SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 111.79 GB
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
OS9 Drivers: Yes
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
SockPocket:
Capacity: 111.66 GB
Available: 311.36 MB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk2s10
Mount Point: /Volumes/SockPocket

[robogobo]

I also assumed it was a firmware issue. However, I wonder why the drive would power down when the Powerbook is put to sleep on battery, and NOT when it is put to sleep on the power adapter. That seemes to be more of a PMU thing. In which case perhaps it can be told to power firewire down ANY time the machine is put to sleep. I can't think of a reason the firewire bus would need power when the machine is sleeping. (i wonder though, do the heads have a chance to park when it suddenly loses bus power?)

Thanks, Rob

[robogobo]

Still wondering about this issue. I found one of OWC's 2.5" FW enclosures that also fails to power/spin down when it is unmounted or when the Powerbook is put to sleep (on AC power). I'm trying to get in contact with their tech support, but nothing so far.

My main question is this: While on Battery power, the external drive powers down when the machine goes to sleep. But otherwise, it must be unplugged to stop spinning, even when it's not mounted on the Desktop. If the PMU cuts off bus power when on Battery, why not other times?