Looking for pin-out for Pi Drive 1TB

[CheshireKatt]

I've purchased a 1tb Pi Drive from WDLabs (specifically, this one: http://wdlabs.wd.com/products/wd-pidriv ... t-edition/), but have had some issues finding pin-out information about it. I've contacted WD support, and they directed me to ask here (which I will admit confuses me a bit, since they're the ones that manufactured it as far as I know), so here I am to see if anyone can provide me this information.

Here's a few images of the drive itself:

The drive info label:

Drive info label

Drive_Top.jpg (60.94 KiB) Viewed 1102 times

The pins I'm interested in (circled in red):

Circled drive pins

Drive_Pins.jpg (60.64 KiB) Viewed 1102 times

I'm interested in the function of the pins in those two circled groups (the 12 to the left of the power/usb connector, and the pair to the right).

If anyone can provide me with any information on this I'd appreciate it. In case it's relevant, my goals are to disable the built-in drive activity light, connect an external drive activity light, and ideally find a way to keep the drive from sleeping when the Pi is powered off but the drive is not.

Thanks!

[MaxK1]

I don't know the pinout, but a couple of suggestions:
Remove the LED and solder in some longer wires. Re-attach the LED to the ends.
Try the hdparm command - "hdparm -S 0 /dev/sda" to disable spindown. Not all drives will accept to this command, but it's worth a try...

Is there anything on the underside of the board indicating what those jumpers are?

[MaxK1]

If you don't want to void the warranty, use a light pipe to get the light from where it is to where you want...

[DougieLawson]

https://community.wd.com/t/connect-by-non-usb/7565

[CheshireKatt]

Thanks for all the information! Based on the link provided, it looks like the 12-pin is just a proprietary connector and not really a jumper block. Oh well.

I'm not *sure* I can pipe it where I want (was hoping to jumper it to an existing behind-button LED), but maybe I can remove that LED and pipe it straight to that location instead. Worst case I just won't worry about it and will just hide the light.

I've read about, but never used, hdparm. Assuming the drive does accept that command, are there any gotchas I need to know about it? Do I need to take any specific steps to prepare it for disconnecting the power, or just the normal things one would do when unplugging a drive? I assume the command purely turns off idle/disconnect spin-down and doesn't affect its behavior otherwise? (Again, assuming this particular drive supports it.)

Thanks again!

[fruitoftheloom]

https://linux.die.net/man/8/hdparm

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install hdparm

[MaxK1]

No special considerations - just beware of commands that are flagged as dangerous. They can be! The set spindown timer is not one of the dangerous ones.

[CheshireKatt]

Perfect. Thanks to everyone that's replied to this thread, it's been really useful.