PS3 External Harddrive Issue

[rounin]

Hello,

Just have a question in regards to my external harddrive. Until a couple days ago I had used an older ATA 3.5" enclosure with my PS3 as a media storage device. I would leave it on and connected via USB and when I wanted to watch stuff, I could just turn on the PS3 and go into my media. It worked well but I thought I would upgrade.

I got a 250GB SATA Hitachi lying around at work and bought an Antec MX-100 enclosure for it. It works well in terms of speed and such, but I notice now that everytime I turn off my PS3 system, the Harddrive spins down. When I turn the PS3 back out from Standby, nothing happens and the harddrive remains inactive. To get the drive to be come detectable, I need to flip the switch at the back of the enclosure. This is kind of annoying...I've tried switching USB cables, ports, etc, but have had no luck in getting rid of the auto spindown nor the lack of reactivation upon waking up the ps3.

I was wondering if anyone has had this problem and has the solution? I'm thinkin maybe I should get a powered USB hub for the PS3 to see if its caused by the PS3 shutting down power to the USB ports when in standby mode...

 

[patsu]

Does the HDD work with other laptops and PCs ? I have a USB drive that only works with some PCs. No idea why (probably power related).

 

[rounin]

Yes, it works with my Thinkpad and my PC. I have not tried shutting off the laptop/PC while the drive is still connected to see if the same thing happens.

 

[rounin]

I actually managed to fix this issue.

Simply connect a powered USB hub to the PS3 and connect the external harddrive through that. Those of you who, like me, have issues with harddrives not waking up properly when its connected to the PS3 can solve that issue in the same way ; the harddrive now spins down and up properly.

I actually bought the hub so that I can plug in my Rockband 2 instruments' dongles and leave them plugged in. Turned out it solved this problem that had been bugging me for a while.

 

[tha_con]

I think this may be problem as well. I think the power output may have been changed. Sounds crazy, but somewhere between firmward 2.4 and 2.5 (I think that's where it is now?) my 2.5" WD External HDD just stopped recognizing, works fine in my laptop, but no longer in my PS3.