[PatrickBateman]

Hi,

I've just had an issue where upon one of my USB drives (WD MyBook) is being used as a source for tv series (recorded).

I set this up to also allow upnp and additionally xbmc 11 is set up for controll by http (iPad)

However,
After leaving xbmc on continuously for 4 days, I've come back to my drive and noticed that its now acting up? The drive is intermittently loosing connection (unrecognised local disc), transferring data so slow that it can't even stream a movie without failure and browsing of the drive is painfully slow?

I've tried new cables, new USB port etc but the same issue persists, the drive is slow to be recognised, interrupts during movie playback (windows has to re identify it which takes a few minutes) then it stutters and won't play as the data is transferred at such a slow rate.

Could this be an issue from xbmc or just coincidence, has xbmc been consistently writing or reading from the drive even when not in use etc? Does xbmc let sources sleep etc as I don't want to plug another drive in until I'm sure this was just a coincidence.

Thanks in advance,

[Memphiz]

What if you do this without letting XBMC run. Just unsure if this is something on windows in conjunction with that drive. Normally XBMC doesn't access drives if there is no addon running which constantly watches the media for updating the library or so.

[PatrickBateman]

What if you do this without letting XBMC run. Just unsure if this is something on windows in conjunction with that drive. Normally XBMC doesn't access drives if there is no addon running which constantly watches the media for updating the library or so.

Hi,

Yea, I've switched off xbmc and the drive behavious is basically the same... It still functions, but is slow, drops out of explorer labeled as TV to "local disc" takes an age to recognise and move/transfer files or navigate? It's as if it's about to fail completely.

The disc is definitely shafted, it's not a big deal, as t's a relatively new disc (I'll just return it) it's a USB portable disc, but my concerne is that i don't want to put another one in immedietly, just Incase the same happens again...

I have about 5 of these portable drives and all have been perfect until I connected this 1 to xbmc under the following corcu stances.. (consistently on, upnp share plus control via http enabled) and now the drive is failing and is SUPER hot as if it's consistently in use? (which it isnt/wasn't) as I wasn't accessing it... It's as if xbmc won't let it sleep?

What plugins would be or could be accessing the drives (off the top of your head do you actively know of any that do such a thing) and I'll try disabling them before I try again.

Thanks again for the info, just a little concerned this may happen again with my more important drives

[PatK]

The My book series is a bit unusual, it looks like there is an onboard embedded Linux O/S which handles some of the routines... I had a 3TB formatted NTFS and my old XP computer saw the entire contents. I didn't install the software driver... but ran into this comment at http://www.techdigest.tv/2012/02/review_western.html which smacks of your issue... Although I didn't have any issues with the drive proper.

Things were going well until we started to install the latest drivers for the My Book Essential. While the onboard drivers worked fine, upgrading to firmware version 3.1.0.11 caused our system to go haywire, with the My Book Essential randomly connecting and disconnecting, our failing to appear at all when connected to our PC. It took a system restore to the initial driver settings before things calmed down again.

The electronics might be going a bit wonky, but it's possible the drive is solid if taken out of the box.. (if you're under a warranty situation, just RMA) You might want to re-load your USB drivers before stretching your other drive legs. My experience with the My Book that I played with, is that I wouldn't want one in my set-up, I'm always a bit suspicious of hidden undocumented controller software.