[Novalug] [Dclug] Spin down and/or Park external USB drives in Linux?

[Ed James]

Megan,

    Here's my take on his question - if I'm wrong, then it's *my*
take. :P

    unmount "removes" the file system from the OS.  But there's also
the issue of physically moving the hardware around.  In the old days,
one would "park" the read/write heads so they don't bounce and
scratch the media.  I'm guessing that he/I/us want to know how to
be sure that the disks are spun down and the heads parked.  Of
course, by now, it's likely that heads auto-park anyway.  I'd also
like to be sure that when I unplug my HD drive from the USB port to
move it, that it's as hardware-safe as possible.

Ed James

Quoting "Megan Larko" <larkoc at iges.org>:

> Maxwell Spangler wrote:
>
> Hi Max,
>
>> When I Unmount/Eject (Whatever) external USB drives on MacOS, I hear the
>> drive park, spin down and go quiet before I physically remove it.
>>
>> Are there ways of easily doing this on Linux?
>
> I'm not certain I correctly understand the question.  Just to safely  
>  remove a USB device from a
> linux system?   One could use the command line in a terminal window   
> (df to see the mount point if
> uncertain and issue the command umount /dev/sdX, preface with sudo   
> if necessary),  On most linux
> boxes running in init level 5 the USB device appears as a icon on   
> the wallpaper.  Right click on the
> USB icon and you are presented with options for "Unmount" and for   
> "Eject",  as appropriate.   Some
> of the USB browsing apps such as GNOME "File Browser" will show the   
> USB device in a left-hand side
> window pane.  Frequently it will have an "Apple OS X"-looking eject   
> icon next to it to cleanly
> unmount the device.   The "File Browser" also has an unmount option   
> by right-clicking the USB icon
> in the left-hand side pane.    The KDE "Dolphin" browser behaves similarly.
>
> Pls clarify if I did not understand the question.
>
> megan
>
>>
>> I have five external drives at this point: Two in Antec MX-1 cases that
>> seem to spin down/up in reaction to USB status of some sort (observed
>> when I shut my system down or unplug the USB cable), two generic boxes
>> and a new Seagate 2.5" drive.
>>
>> I'd like to treat them with as much respect as possible and that means
>> if I'm going to disconnect the Seagate (which powers via USB cable) I'd
>> love to shut it down into a "safe mode" as much as possible.
>>
>> I yanked a generic 2.5" drive recently during some sort of activity and
>> afterwards the drive is kaput.  So I'm trying to avoid that with this
>> new one.
>>
>>
>
>
> --
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>
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