I just purchased a WD My Book 3TB External Drive. I have it connected to my system via USB 3 running Windows 7 Professional.
After shutting down the computer from “Start\Shut down” the LED status light on the WD External drive continues to flash slowly.
The pdf user manual states that a slow flashing LED means system standby mode.
Is this normal behavior?
To be clear when I shut down the computer it is a full shut down, not any type of sleep or hibernate mode.
I have other external drives from other manufacturers connected to this system and their status lights all completely extinguish after shut down, and they are not ejected and the power to them is still supplied.
The flashing LED does not bother me while the computer is off, I just want to be sure that the WD Drive is behaving normally and is at the lowest power usage possible while the computer is off. The drive is still connected to the computer and the power cord is plugged in similar to the other drives connected mentioned above.
I have the same question actually. I would like the drive not to be in standby I would like it to be off completely if possible when the PC is off. Is there a way to do that ??? I noticed when I unplug the USB from the PC it turns off so I am thinking the PC is still getting low enough power for it to recognixe the PC is off and so it goes into standby. Maybe one of my other USB ports doesn’t use any power when the PC is off… would that work ??? Or is their a setting for that ???
After searching the internet and the user manual there seems to be no definitive answer as to exactly what “standby” means. I was just trying to discern if “standby” is the lowest level of power usage available when the computer is off and the WD My Book is still plugged in to a surge suppressor, my concern being drive longevity.
Of course most peripherals and the computer itself use a tiny bit of power even when they are completely turned off if they are still plugged in. When the computer is off and the other before mentioned non WD external drives that are connected and are plugged in do not display any kind of standby light. Most devices and computers don’t have a standby light. Not a problem, I suppose just a behavior particular to WD external drives.
It does appear after using the “My Book” drive for over a week now that it is in a powered down state when the LED is flashing slowly. When accessing the drive while in standby it takes about 20 seconds before it responds, probably because it has to power up. There is a setting in one of the included apps where you can set the elapsed time before it goes into standby. When the LED is on and not blinking then there is instant access to any file or folder. I have the WD set to go into standby after 15 minutes of inactivity.
