External FW Drives keep spinning down

I've researched this issue on and off for a couple of months now and am not yet satisfied with what I've found so far. I have a couple of external hard drives One G-RAID 500GB and another modified G-Drive (I recently replaced the original drive an put in a new Western Digital 500GB IDE drive inside).
THE PROBLEM: Both external drives keep spinning down after about 8 to 10 mins of inactivity. Is there a way to prevent this?
Other forums say that OS X will ignore the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" setting for external drives while other suggest that this spin-down is a function handled by the firmware of actual hard disk drive. If the latter is true then I guess the question would then be which drive manufacturer makes a drive that doesn't spin down?
It's very annoying to have to to wait for the spin-up (beach ball) every time you want to save your work. Yes it's only a few seconds but when you have lots of work to do this is an annoyance you can do without.
APPLE: If you are reading, please chime in. Is it true that OS X's "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" setting doesn't work for external drives?
I've also wondered OS X is the one issuing the command that orders the external drives to spin-down. And if so, how do you turn it off?
Maybe a command in Terminal?
Thanks,
Xavier

THis is certainly a common problem with WD drives, especially, but it may apply to others as well. Do you know what brand of drive is installed in the G-Raid?
Apart from the drive itself it could also be precipitated by firmware in the bridge enclosure.
One solution to this sort of issue is to simply create an automated process that briefly accesses the drive before the 'spin down" process occurs.
You will find a page on how to do this HERE (you will obviously have to substitute the name of your own volume for the one in the article).
An easier way if you don't want to mess around at that level is to simply use a script or app to do the job.
Take a look at Keep Drive Spinning which is free, or "No Spin" which is shareware, for example.
Cheers
Rod

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Message was edited by: Stixer

I don't know if anyone will click on this since I already marked it solved, but I will try it and then if not I'll start a new thread. Just don't want to clutter up the forum if I don't need to.
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Otherwise great product, AirPort Extreme n prevents
my WD MyBook 500GB disk from spinning down when not
in use. I bought that particular disc, because of its
ability to go to sleep when not accessed for a period
of time.
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Hi
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