getting a UPS to shut down an external drive

November 16, 2005 7:46 PM

If I have a power cut when I'm not at my computer, my UPS will keep my computers running until Windows can close down automatically and gracefully. But how do I get my Maxtor network storage to shut down? The UPS interface allows windows to call software before it closes...what software do I call to close my drive down? Or is the drive safe if it has its power cut off?
posted by krunk to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Is the drive connected to the computer? You say it's "network storage", which gives me the impression that it's just connected to the network, and not a computer, right?

If that's the case I don't think there is much you can do to get the UPS to shut it down.

If it's connected to your computer, on the other hand, the proper shutdown of your computer should stop any data access that is going on with the drive, so when the power is cut, it shouldn't cause any damage (because the drive will just spin down, but won't have the heads bouncing around accessing data)...
posted by twiggy at 7:57 PM on November 16, 2005

Assuming all the computers that were using the drive get shut down by the outage, then powering the drive off is harmless. The only issue is having half-written files from some computer that was in the act of writing when the drive is shut off.
posted by knave at 8:10 PM on November 16, 2005

Response by poster: Excellent, thanks for the fast response!
posted by krunk at 8:16 PM on November 16, 2005

Response by poster: That's an interesting point -- I think it currently serves as the backup system for my dad's LAN (I posted the question on his behalf).

I wonder if he does backups for the backup... could go on forever!
posted by krunk at 9:54 AM on November 17, 2005