Other External products

[kurteye]

I just bought a 500GB One Touch 4 for use as a drive for backups. It seems to me that the drive isn't sleeping properly.

Most nights, I put my computer into Sleep mode rather than shutting it down completely. When I do that, the light on the OT4 goes out immediately, but some time later (an hour or two), the light comes back on and stays on -- steadily, not pulsing or blinking -- for the rest of the night while the computer remains asleep.

What's worse, a couple nights ago I shut my computer down completely. The drive light went out, but later came back on and stayed on all night as usual. Even though the computer was OFF.

The booklet that came with the drive and the user guide PDF don't say anything about the status light. There are four different modes, as far as I can tell:

- No light (drive is powered down)
- Steady light (powered up)
- Blinking light (data is being read or written)
- Pulsing light (drive is in low-power sleep mode?)

I'm pretty sure the light shouldn't be steady all night, indicating that the drive is fully powered up. I'd prefer it to sleep (pulse for a while), then eventually power down (lights out).

System: Intel iMac OS 10.5 (Leopard), Time Machine for backups, using Firewire interface to drive

I'd blame the new Mac OS, except that it happens when the computer isn't even on...

[kurteye]

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? :: bump ::

[Ratava]

My Light constantly blinks although no activity is detected. Backup works perfectly But that light is driving me crazy....

[Ratava]

Still no answers..:-) BTW Maxtor One touch 4 Vista system, Light is always blinking....

[stubbsie]

Hi,

I have just bought a Maxtor One-touch 4 Plus 500GB drive last weekend, and a Freeagent desktop 500 GB drive on Black Friday. I too have questions about the Maxtor's drive status light on front of Maxtor drive. I have windows vista business, and have installed the maxtor manager software. My light on my Maxtor drive stays lighted constant when I am on my computer, then when accessing drive, it will blink. I have seen intermittant blinking only after long time of not accessing the drive, maybe that is a resting state.

I keep both my drives plugged in and on.

Now last night, I had the usual windows automatic updates, and the computer rebooted by itself, the Maxtor drive did not turn back on. I unplugged and replugged the drive and it came back on fine and I check drive manager and it says drive is recognized, and I see the folders fine. Now I went to work today and my computer was on all day, I do not use windows sleep mode. I come home and the Maxtor drive was powered off again, by itself... how did it do that? So I had to go and unplug the drive and plug in the drive, now the drive is on, but how to trust it at all? There is no power switch. Does this drive turn itself off normally? This would be unusual. I would like answers to questions about this drive's power settings and configurations for power and the inconsistant white light status on the front.

I also have a FreeAgent Desktop 500GB drive and its software drive manager.  It also does not have a power switch. The FreeAgent drive goes into some kind of rest state and the yellow bar dims when not in use. The yellow bar pulsates dim to bright when accessing this drive. This drive stays on when windows Vista Reboots due to an update. However I have heard this drive has weakness with its power controller, so I try to keep it plugged in all the time, and I have not yet had any problem with this drive turning off by itself.

The Freeagent drive manager software recognizes the Maxtor one-touch 4 drive in it's drive status and the Maxtor drive manager does not see the Freeagent drive, which is well and good since the One-Touch software has different backup features. I do not use any of the backup software provided by either drive, I do my own backup manually, and I keep copies of all my files on my main computer drive and also backed up to DVD or CD disks as well.

Both drives are about the same temperature when in use, and the Freeagent drive is a bit quieter (I found it has a SATA drive inside), the Maxtor drive makes more hard drive access noise (what type of drive is inside?).

Both these drives were purchased to replace an old Maxtor OneTouch III 350 GB drive that suffered from  "the  drive is corrupt and unreadable, do you want to format this drive" syndrome. That drive had goofy character next to drive letter, and also in event viewer stated that it was corrupt and unreadable.  I had to use disk recovery software on that drive.

[clairejr]

I had a similar problem today when I plugged my power strip into the wall outlet. The Maxtor was attached to the power strip and the drive turned on even though the power strip was off. I decided to contact Maxtor directly and, before sending my message, I was presented with the following information for Mac users:

How to turn on or turn off the FireWire or USB External Storage unit to ensure it is recognized in a Mac system.

Description
How should I turn on or turn off my External Storage drive?

Answer

The following power sequence must be followed for your system to properly detect your USB and/or FireWire External Storage unit:

When the Mac is OFF:

To TURN ON the External Drive and the Mac Computer:

Plug one end of the interface cable into the drive and the other end into your Mac's FireWire or USB Port.

Powering up the External Drive
For External Drives WITHOUT a power switch - connect the power cord into the power connector
For External Drives WITH a power switch - turn the power switch to the ON position.
...please allow 10 seconds for the drive to power up.
Power on the Mac.


To TURN OFF the Mac and External Drive:

Power down the Mac
Powering down the External Drive
For External Drives WITHOUT a power switch - disconnect the power cord from the power connector
For External Drives WITH a power switch - turn the power switch to the OFF position.
Disconnect the FireWire or USB interface cable from the port on the external drive and from the Mac (optional).


Notice that the drive has to be disconnected from the power cord when the computer is off. That's not something that makes me smile.

I've sent my email, anyway, to Maxtor to get a clarification. You might want to do the same thing.

Claire

[zyxwvu001]

I also have a 500GB One Touch 4 HD with a status light that stays on after I command my Vista OS computer to Shut Down.  Hard to sleep.  Any solution ??

[Frost Media]

Well when your computer is either powered down or asleep, then just unplug the OneTouch and the light will go out. Oh, and to the guy who did not know what the pulsing light was, it is when the device has not been used in a while, the device goes into a low powered mode where the hard disk turns off, but then if you open the Maxtor in something like Windows Explorer it will wake up and the pulsing light will stop and go steady or start flashing steadily. Hope this helps, please let me know if there is anything else i can help with.

Thanks,

Frost Media Support Team 

[zyxwvu001]

Thank you for the reply.  Yes, unplugging the USB cable (or the power cable) does cause the status light to go off.  But...there must be a better way ???

P.S.  I  have a Seagate FreeAgent Drive drive that has a Settings option to "Turn lights off".