Take the 2-minute tour ×  Our backup script mounts an USB hard
drive, copies some files, then unmounts. So, since the drive is
only in use during this period, I thought it would be good to
power down the drive once the backup is complete. Is there a
command to do this? If yes, would I need to manually power it
back up again when I need to use it next time?  share|improve
this question What type of USB drive? I know most of the Western
Digital Mybooks will spin down the drive after inactivity. Some
of the better USB docks do this as well. –  Zoredache Oct 27 '10
at 21:39 It's just a generic drive "toaster". –  nbolton Oct 27
'10 at 21:40 Just an update, I managed to get the drive to stop
briefly by running sg_start --stop /dev/sdc but unfortunately
the damn thing just starts it's self back up again! –  nbolton
Oct 27 '10 at 21:43 Do you have HAL or udisks on your system? If
so, it may be a polling daemon that is waking it back up again.
If so, hal-disable-polling --device /dev/sdc or udisks
--inhibit-polling /