How to disable autosuspend for external USB HDD?

User Support General
1

Hi,

My USB docking station suspends the HDD plugged in it after some time of inactivity. That on/off is not good for HDD life.

How can I disable that behavior?

2

Hi,

Maybe with sdparm or hdparm, I’m not sure though but it’s how it is controlled for internal HDD.

3

Hm. I thought it might be something Qubes related because I already checked:

root@sys-usb:~ # hdparm -B /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 APM_level	= off

However, according to hdparm -I (‘*’ means Enabled):

root@sys-usb:~ # hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep -i power
	Advanced power management level: disabled
	   *	Power Management feature set
	    	Advanced Power Management feature set
	    	Power-Up In Standby feature set
	   *	SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up
	   *	Host-initiated interface power management
	    	Device-initiated interface power management

I can’t find any info how to disable any of those.
I suppose the host-initiated PM might be related?

4

Disclaimer: This isn’t a complete solution to the OP’s problem—just my experience with a similar issue.

I was facing the same problem with my external USB HDD. I haven’t tinkered with the actual power settings, but I ended up putting a bandaid on it by creating a sys‑nas qube. If the drive was left unmounted for too long, it would enter a deep sleep state from which mounting via dom0 couldn’t wake it up. With the drive permanently mounted through sys‑nas, it no longer powers off; it still sleeps, but I don’t have to constantly unplug it to wake it up. Plus, I can mount the external drive to another qube through sys‑nas if needed.

This isn’t a one-size-fits-all fix, but it’s worked reliably for my setup. I’m following this post as I would love a way to keep my drive awake also.

5

@rustyshackleford

I guess I didn’t word the title very well.

The HDD does not power off. Without active data transfer, some time passes and after 2-3 clicking sounds it just enters some state in which it becomes more silent (no more typical HDD clicking sounds) but it is still warm and spinning. And that is regardless of whether a partition is still mounted.

I can’t diagnose the exact state because hdparm -C always shows “stanby”, even during the active state (e.g. while copying files to the drive).

So, I am not quite clear on what exactly is happening.

6

That’s the problem of sata-usb controllers used in most external usb enclosure.

7

That’s the problem of sata-usb controllers used in most external usb enclosure.

Where can I read more about it?

8

JMicron controllers are notorious for having its own mind about how drive should work.
Normally for external drive it’s not a problem. You connect them, transfer files and disconnect. The problem arise with NAS configuration mostly. Fortunately there are hacked firmware for that:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/15r2u42/how_do_you_stop_external_ssds_and_hdds_from_going/

9

Thanks.

I am quite reluctant to flushing firmware downloaded from a random website, so I guess I will try to configure some automatic periodic activity to keep the drive active.