I recently switched to a new Windows 11 Pro computer, and ever since I attached my WD MyBook Duo (28TB) to it, the activity LED at the front has been in the ‘slow breathing’ mode, indicating activity, and the drive can be heard ‘rumbling’ (these drives are quite loud). However, the OS is not accessing the drive (as in, no process is actively accessing the volume). The drive never goes to sleep, even though I have set a sleep period in the Windows power plan and have set the same time in WD Drive Utilities.
After some trial and error by switching off Windows services, I found that the “WD Drive Manager” service is causing the continuously blinking LED. Stopping that service changes the light to a stable ‘on’, only blinking (as it should) when the drive is accessed. However, the drive still does not switch off at the time specified in the power plan.
This problem did not occur when it was attached to my previous computer running Windows 10.
What is “WD Drive Manager” doing? And how can I get the drive to go to sleep when there has been no activity for some time?
