Several postings on this forum recommend to use EJECT before powering the device off (long POWER button press). I also observed that my WDTV (firmware 1.03.10) is doing some harddisk access before going into standby, but not before going into power-off mode.
My question is: is this documented somewhere? I couldn’t find anything about this in the manual, the release notes or the products FAQ. Actually, the manual says:
Press and hold the power button for five seconds to completely shut down the media player.
I usually understand the term “shut down” to mean a clean shutdown - i.e. terminating processes, unmounting filesystems and then powering off - compared to “hard” / “forced” / “immediate” power-off (which, of course, can result in data loss).
The manual doesn’t say that we should press EJECT before shutting down the player (it only mentions to use EJECT before removing a device) or that shutting down the player could lead to some data loss.
So, I’m wondering: which information is correct? Did I miss something? Or is this a bug in the firmware?
It is not a bug and it is not documented anywhere (as far as I know), but is advisable, because the drive might be accessed at the moment of the power off, this way, you avoid any possible issue.
I used to turn off my WD TV Live Hub ( and latter the Streamer) without ejecting the drives, after reading here few of the post and talking to one of the users, it did make sense and started to do it.
From my understanding, and I could be wrong: The 3-second power down is implemented in HARDWARE by the I/R controller talking to the MCU that controls the power state.
The O/S isn’t even aware you’re doing a 3-second push, and even if it was, it may not have time to do an eject before the power is turned off.
If it is implemented in hardware, there’s nothing they could change in software to correct that behavior…
Again, though, this is just theory…
Reason I think this is done in hardware is that I’ve *NEVER* had to pull the plug on my box. Even when it’s locked up harder than granite, the 3-second power-down still works.
If it were software, it wouldn’t work if the box is locked up…
I pretty much doubt that the 3-second power-off is implemented exclusively in the hardware when it doesn’t work while watching Netflix, because of the exit prompt. However, I think that it does forcefully close all I/O filestreams, which could indeed result in data corruption, if you don’t eject the accessed drive beforehand.
There is still something not quite right with mounting/dismounting of drives from the WDTV, and it doesn’t seem to matter how you do it.
I’ll attach my drive to my win 7 laptop, and it immediately flags drive problems. I run repair, it finds nothing, and now the drive is “clean”. I’ll reconnect to the WDTV, power up, use the drive, dismount (manually or via the power switch), power down, remove the drive, reconnect to the laptop, and it again flags errors. Every time, regardless of how it was mounted or dismounted.
I’ve taken to ignoring it. It will probably bite me in the butt at some point.
Ok, make sure you’re getting this: POWER SWITCH does *NOT* dismount the drives.
The only safe way to dismount the drives is via the EJECT function.
If that’s what you mean by “Manual,” then I don’t know what the issue might be…
Also, I guess I have to ask: Before you unplug them from your PC, are you “Safely Removing” them before you unplug?
lol… yeah, I got that. That is what I meant by ‘manual’, ejecting them before power down.
And yes, I always perform a safe remove when connected to the PC. I’m a Systems Analyst. I yell at people for not doing it the right way and know the result when it’s done wrong.
I did a small test with my Elements 2TB, which spins down automatically:
When the drive has spun down it seems to take some 20 seconds to eject/unmount it (determined by looking at the light at the back of the drive and listening to the head seeks). Problem is: there’s no indication on screen or the WDTV front light when the “eject” is actually completed.
Another test: If I eject the drive and then immediately afterwards press the power button for 3+ seconds, WDTV powers off before the drive has even spun up - so there’s quite certainly no time for a clean unmount/eject.
I have to say that this situation scares me quite a bit, I’d even go so far as considering the power-off feature harmful, in it’s current implementation. I hope WD will implement an easy-to-use and safe power-off method in some future firmware so that the new WDTV works similar to the older WDTV Live.
