Intermittent Issue With Lag Opening Directories - WD My Passport Ultra

[ghost]

Hi IgnorantGuru,

I just purchased a 2TB WD My Passport Ultra USB 3.0 drive, and I noticed that in SpaceFM I'm experiencing an issue that is intermittent, meaning I'm not seeing the issue everytime I plug the hard drive in, but it does appear typically once out of every five tries, or about that...

When I click on a directory sometimes it appears empty with nothing in it, and I have to go back up a directory and then reclick the directory again for the contents to appear, or I click on the directory and it takes around 5 seconds for the contents to appear.

I'm not sure why I'm getting this lag, but I've used several usb drives since SpaceFM has come out and I've not experienced this problem till now, so I'm wondering if there could be a lack of support with some newer 3.0 USB drives?

I read that the WD My Passport Ultra now has a different type of firmware built onto it that requires a driver called WD SES for access to certain drive features, sometimes places I read online said it's not really required, but I'm still not sure without it if there can be issues, it still makes me wonder because of this, if this is where SpaceFM is having an issue.

Here is a link regarding this driver;

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3739/~/what-is-the-ses-driver,-why-is-it-needed,-and-how-to-get-the-driver-popup-to

According to the link, it's a special communications channel (SCSI) between the PC and the hard drive to enable certain features such as password protection, LED control, and access to the drives label if applicable. It seems to be some sort of SCSI support...

thanks...

[VastOne]

^ Any information at all from a terminal output as this is happening?

[IgnorantGuru]

SpaceFM doesn't have any interaction with the driver or even the filesystem, it merely goes through the kernel the same way for all kinds of devices. You'll need to debug this at that level.

Closing this but feel free to add comments below with any information you think is applicable.

[ghost]

Hi IgnorantGuru,

But if this wasn't a SpaceFM issue, then shouldn't I also see the lag at the terminal if I mount it from the terminal and then move through the terminal with cmds, cd, ls, mkdir, etc..?

If I mount the drive at the terminal and move through it via the terminal I never seen any of this lag, I only see this in SpaceFM, that is why I reported this...Sorry I didn't mention this till now, but I hope you'll please reopen this bug report, until sure this is not a SpaceFM issue...

@VastOne no information from the terminal when it's lagging...

thank you...

[IgnorantGuru]

SpaceFM may need to open some of the files to get their mime type or thumbnails, so that could explain the difference. Sounds like there's a delay in the device or driver, etc. - nothing SpaceFM can do about this.

[ghost]

Sorry I'm not trying to debate or give you a hard time, I just don't understand that if there is no problems at the terminal, then how do we simply say this is not an application issue?

If there's a delay in the device or driver, shouldn't this also appear at a terminal?

The lag/delay only appears in SpaceFM, so I don't see how it gets ruled out, is what I'm confused over. :(

thank you...

[thapar]

Since it's a regular spinning hard disk, those take time to startup again after idling. That would be a likely reason for your delay. The same thing will happen in any file manager or even Windows.

Once the directory displays its file list after the "lag", you have no trouble listing those files afterwards if you exit and re-enter the directory, correct? (or at least for some amount of time until the drive idles again)

[ghost]

I understand the concept of idle on a disk, this is not about an idle disk coming back.

This is just after the disk has been mounted and is active, and even at that point it lags being active/used, trying to open a directory.

Two things I didn't mention;

1. I'm using 3.13.9 - not sure if any issues here...
2. I removed some usb options from the kernel, maybe this is the possibilty

This is all I have in the kernel USB Support

Support for Host-side USB
Enable USB persist by default
USB Monitor
xHCI HCD (USB 3.0) support
EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) support
Improved Transaction Translator scheduling
UHCI HCD (most Intel and VIA) support
USB Printer support
USB Mass Storage support
Realtek Card Reader support
Realtek Card Reader autosuspend support

@thpar did you read what I said about the WD SES driver? I'm wondering if there is a possibiliy this is the issue in Linux, having a lack of this support, possibly causing the issue. The driver is suppose to be some type of SCSI Transport.

[VastOne]

SCSI support in the Linux kernel is as old as Linux is, just saying

[ghost]

Of course SCSI is in Linux, but WD has made their own driver, so I'm not sure if what WD did is causing an issue here or not...

[ghost]

With SpaceFM I've never seen a delay on a USB drive to respond till now, maybe this is just a newer feature of this drive to go idle and sleep when not in use, but again I've never seen this on any usb drive till now.

I sent the original one back but I still see the same thing on the new drive I received, actually this drive isn't quite as slow responding as the last one too...

So might this just be a idle/sleep feature and it's going to take a few seconds for some newer generation drives to repsond when you haven't used them in a while?

thank you...

[arclance]

With SpaceFM I've never seen a delay on a USB drive to respond till now, maybe this is just a newer feature of this drive to go idle and sleep when not in use, but again I've never seen this on any usb drive till now.

The spin down (sleep) when idle feature is very common in external USB drives that use traditional magnetic drives internally.
It has been common for at least the last five years actually because it is a common feature on the low cost drives that are commonly used in the consumer grade pre-filled enclosures sold by most companies.
When buying bare drives the feature is usually found on low power "green" drives and is used to reduce power consumption by only spinning the drive when it is in use.

I have bought empty enclosures and put drives in them myself to avoid this feature for at least that long myself.

[ghost]

My mistake, I didn't really say that the way I meant...

Yes I know drives have power management in them, I mean to say this is the first USB drive I've ever used that takes a long time to come back and meant to say that maybe there is some newer feature to this drive going on taking it longer to respond then I've normally seen in the past...

The truth is I've had USB drives plugged in to a usb port for hours that have not been accessed for long periods of time, and as soon as I click a folder it opens immediately, this has not been the situation with this WD Passport drive.

I've actually been buying for many years, just your average consumer usb drives from seagate, western digital, verbatim etc., over the years, and none of them has ever done this, that's a big point I'm trying to make that yes they might of all had some type of power management spin downs, going idle, but I still don't why this WD Passport Ultra takes like 5-10 seconds to respond.

If I have not used the drive for any length of time and I click on a folder it literally takes 5-10 seconds to open, this I find to extreme and I'm trying to figure out why so slow only on this usb drive and none of the others I've used in the past few years have never done this...