Xfce seems to wake up an USB drive, when it should stay asleep

Question

Hi,
I already tried to get help by the mailing list, but the mailing list is bad moderated. Even when providing something that would solve an issue for others, it often is needed to reply off-list.
A brand new WD Elemets does spin up and down again and again, it's neither the drive's nor the kernel's fault. When not running a Xfce session the device spins down after 30 minutes and keeps sleeping.
"noatime" or "relatime" can't be disabled by fstab, since the partitions aren't mounted by it and the drive anyway spins up and down again and again, when no partition is mounted.
[rocketmouse@archlinux src]$ idle3ctl -V
idle3ctl v0.9.1
[rocketmouse@archlinux src]$ sudo smartctl -i /dev/sdc
smartctl 6.0 2012-10-10 r3643 [x86_64-linux-3.7.10-1-ARCH] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: WDC WD20EZRX-00DC0B0
Serial Number: WD-WMC300753067
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 65863b194
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity: 2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 1.5 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Sat Mar 16 12:00:15 2013 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
[rocketmouse@archlinux src]$ sudo smartctl /dev/sdc -a | grep '^193'
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 1747
[rocketmouse@archlinux src]$ sudo idle3ctl --force -v -d /dev/sdc
Checking if Drive is a Western Digital Drive
outgoing cdb: 85 08 2e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 ec 00
data: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
SG_IO: ATA_16 status=0x0, host_status=0x7, driver_status=0x8
SG_IO: bad response (not CHECK_CONDITION)
Trying legacy HDIO_DRIVE_CMD
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Invalid argument
I need to find out, how to disable the "bug" that does wake up the drive without reason.
arch-general-owner wrote:
Subject: Request to mailing list arch-general rejected
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:42:52 -0400
Your request to the arch-general mailing list
    Posting of your message titled "Re: [arch-general] Western Digital
external drives"
has been rejected by the list moderator.  The moderator gave the
following reason for rejecting your request:
"Enough speculation for this week: messages where you make many
different hypothesis without actually testing any are of no use to
this list. Please wait until you have have actual facts to report or
contribute before posting next time. Cheers. --[snip]"
I wonder how I should test something, if I don't know what to test? That's why I ask for help.
Another solution might be, to know how to open and close the case, without damaging anything. Has somebody ever opened and closed the case of a WD Elements?
Regards,
Ralf

Answer 1

There are many SSD related tips in the latest release of Computer Power User magazine. Look in the October 2010 issue starting on page 31.
Secure erase the SSD before first use using a tool like HDD Erase.
Apply all firmware updates before you load the operating system. Recheck for new updates.
Set the sata controller to ACHI.
Do not use a pre_VISTA system to partition the SSD.
Overprovision the SSD by leaving 10 GB available for recovery from dirty states.
Stay current with sata controller updates being released by the manufacturer.
Check to see if trim is active. Open a command prompt and enter: fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify  --> 0 is OK
Don't use drive indexing on the SSD.
The above tips may not solve your problem but eliminating them as possibities may help in narrowing down possibilities.
HP DV9700, t9300, Nvidia 8600, 4GB, Crucial C300 128GB SSD
HP Photosmart Premium C309G, HP Photosmart 6520
HP Touchpad, HP Chromebook 11
Custom i7-4770k,Z-87, 8GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650,GTX 760
Custom i7-4790k,Z-97, 16GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Plextor M.2 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650, GTX 660TI
Windows 7/8 UEFI/Legacy mode, MBR/GPT