LE8 build on Raspberry Pi 3, external hard drive seems to get lost after a few minutes of being idle.

elrd · September 29, 2017 at 8:02 PM

I have a LibreELEC 8 build on a Raspberry PI3 I got a WD Easystore external drive to connect externally via USB cable. Everything seemed to work just fine, but if the drive sits idle for say 10 to 20 minutes, it seems to get lost. I am not sure, but I think the drive is spinning down (probably the drive itself doing that), but then the system can't seem to use it anymore. It just seems like it keeps cycling in some attempt to get going again, but nothing will work with the drive unless I reboot.

Just hoping someone might have something to say, despite the lack of details I can provide right now,

Thanks

**popcornmix** · October 6, 2017 at 4:32 PM

Posting output of "dmesg" when the drive goes may be helpful.

An insufficient power supply may be to blame.

elrd · October 12, 2017 at 8:02 PM

Thank you for the "dmesg" suggestion. I did try to do that and tailing other logs but nothing obvious. I believe it was a power issue, but curious I did not see any lightning bolt on my screen which helps indicate not enough power.

I purchased an inexpensive powered USB hub with great reviews. At first, this did not help, but I noticed it could back feed power (from reviewing blogs about it, this is not too uncommon for lower priced powered hubs?). I also noticed, using a current meter, that sometimes it would try to take power from the Pi, and not the power feed. After testing with an extension USB cable, and cutting the voltage line to prevent back feed power, or power draw from the computer, everything seemed to work just fine. I tried to find a data only usb cable (no power lines) to isolate the power, but did not find one yet.