Best way for novice to spin down USB on idle

I have been very pleased with my Vero since purchase, one of the reasons behind the purchase was that it came pretty well configured out the box and I wouldn’t need to fiddle with Linux etc.

One thing I’m finding however is that the USB (formatted NTFS) I drive all content from doesn’t seem to be spinning down when connected (spinning when touched), however it does after a few minutes of non-use when connected to Windows.

I’ve seen suggestions to spindown and unmount:
Vero 4k USB HDD unmount and Vero 4k USB HDD unmount - #25 by Tom_Doyle (the linked superuser post suggesting chipset specifics looks like there may be fundamental issues?)

However forum posts for getting such such commands into the Vero, and don’t really fancy spending a few hours figuring out what linux commands and parameters may be necessary.

  1. Could you provide an option in next OSMC to FORCE spindown after n minutes
  2. In the meantime what are my options to ensure my drive lasts as long as possible? (detailed instructions/link how to enter those scripts and if they need to be done each vero update would be necessary!)

Cheers

Your drive should spin down (I have 4 drives ext4 formatted connected to my Vero 4K, and they all spin down) So you need to look at what plugins you may have installed.

Of course, posting logs could also help us figure out why the drives don’t spin down.

And here is a very personal opinion on this subject… Shutting down drives every X minutes causes far more wear on the drive than just leaving it on! Think about when the last time a light bulb blew out on you. Yep, it was probably after you turned it off and back on. And when I worked in a computer center during the Y2K panic, we had our highest drive failure rate ever because of the system shutdowns that night.

But that’s just my opinion Others will probably disagree.

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I just did a little googling, and found this:

Very good advice, and you will notice their comments about drive sleep. Basically agrees with what I said.