[arch-general] Western Digital external drives

[Ralf Mardorf]

Hallo,

I'm aware that there's an Arch Wiki about WD drives. However, I need to
know if something is bad with Linux or a brand new WD drive.

In the German WD forms I got a reply, with the claim, that once a WD
Elements is spin down, it will park, _not_ spin up again, if there's no
access.

For my updated Arch Linux, 64-bit with current kernel and current
kernel-rt, running current Xfce 4 the drive does spin down and up again
and again even when _no_ partition is mounted, I'm running a Xfce 4
session without an application launched, while I don't use the computer.
So with completely no access by me,

- Arch Linux _does_ access the drive, even if no partition is mounted
- or I got a brand new drive that's broken and should make use of the
  warranty

How can I find out, if there's something fishy with my Arch Linux or if
the drive is broken?

Any ideas?

Regards,
Ralf