Many months ago, I installed the latest firmware update (5.16.105) for my Western Digital “My Cloud” EX2 Ultra NAS drive. In my Dashboard, I have Drive Sleep ON (under Energy Saver). I only use this drive for Time Machine backups from my Mac, and for the last 4 years, it has only run when there is a backup occurring, or when it is indexing; but for the last 20 days, the drive has been running constantly, without stopping. I called Western Digital, and spoke to an agent, who spent almost an hour on the phone with me, finally having to ask his senior advisor about the problem. He told me that his senior advisor told him the firmware update no longer uses Drive Sleep, and that the drive constantly running is normal. I responded, “If that were true, then why didn’t this problem occur months ago when I installed the firmware update, and why does the Energy Saver “Drive Sleep” switch still appear in the Dashboard, if it is no longer supported by the firmware update?” His answer was, “That is how it is; you don’t have any other choice.” I asked to speak to a second tier support person, but he said that they would just tell me the same thing. I have never heard of a drive that runs 24 hours a day, even when it isn’t being accessed. This will drastically shorten the life of the drive, waste electricity, and just the constant noise is annoying (it is in a bedroom). As I said, up until 20 days ago, this drive worked perfectly, and only started spinning when there was a backup or when it was indexing. Does anyone else have this experience, or know of any tips to get Drive Sleep to work correctly?
Whirring-type fan noise (although I don’t think it has a fan), and normal drive activity sounds. Update: I just opened my Dashboard, and went to Settings / Utilities / System Diagnostics / Disk Test, then ran “Quick Test,” and it said that my Drive 2 disk was bad. So I contacted WD and was told to buy a new disk (WD Red 8 TB NAS Drive, Model WDC WD80EFZX-68UW8N0), then turn off the power to the drive, replace the bad with the new, reboot (red light comes on) and wait until the light is solid blue. Next, I will need to re-select the drive for Time Machine on m Mac. I will post another update, once I have done that. (I hope those drives are still available.) Thanks!
Aha! Didn’t know that. Thanks!
Update: Since one of the 2 WD Red 8 TB drives was bad, I thought I could by another, but unfortunately, they have been discontinued. In fact, WD seems to have discontinued all 5,400 RPM drives, which is unfortunate, because my WD EX2 Ultra is 3 feet away from my head, and I have heard that 7,200 RPM drives can be quite noisy. But I bought 2 WD Red Pro 8 TB drives to replace my old ones. They have a 5 year warranty, versus a 3 year warranty on the WD Red Plus drives, so the cost difference is worth it.
