Comment 80 for bug 1239087

Revision history for this message
In , Nrbrtx (nrbrtx-redhat-bugs) wrote :

Description of problem:
In previous versions of gnome-disk-utility (palimpsest) users were able to do a Safely remove of USB-flash or USB-HDD.
Let's use GNOME Disks 3.0.2 (as in Ubuntu 12.04.3) as example - it uses UDisks v.1 and I'm able to do safely remove (power off) of USB-flash or spin-down USB-HDD.

Fedora 20 has gnome-disk-utility 3.10.0
UDisks 2.1.2 (built against 2.1.1)
- this version has Safely remove functionality but it seems that is broken.
What I mean by 'broken'?
If I do Safely remove of USB-flash - it works correctly - so after Safely remove LED on flash is off.
If I do Safely remove of USB-HDD - it works incorrectly - it does not spin-down my HDD.
If I manually to a Safely remove from console with 'udisks --detach /dev/sdX' - LED on my flash is off and my USB-HDD is spinned down.

So gnome-disks have a bug with Safely remove of USB-HDD.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
gnome-disk-utility-3.10.0-2.fc20.i686

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Connect USB-HDD to your PC running Fedora 20
2. Do some work on USB-HDD partition(s)
3. Try to do Safely remove of USB-HDD with gnome-disks.

Actual results:
After safely remove USB-HDD is not spinned-down (keep rotating), removed from system (there is no USB-HDD lsusb) and will spin-down only by disconnecting USB-cable.

Expected results:
After Safely remove USB-HDD is spinned-down (not rotating) and may be safely removed.

Additional info:
I understand that USB-mass storage devices may be safely detached from computer after unmount (and sync) and that USB-HDD with SATA interface are hot-pluggable and hot-swappable.
But why safely remove functionality is removed in the newest versions of udisks (and Nautilus, Gnome Disks)?
For me it’s more comfortable to detach USB-flash with switched off LED and spinned-down USB-HDD.

The only one working method for safe detaching of USB-device is to call “udisks --detach /dev/sdXN”, but it does not user-friendly and modern GNU/Linux distros does not have udisks v.1 pre-installed (if I remember correctly - Fedora 20, OpenSuSe 12.3, may be others).

Recently I have brought external USB 3.0 HDD (Western Digital My Passport Ultra 2 TB), it has WD Utilities for Windows.
This WD Utilities has special option (in windows tray) for doing Safely remove of the HDD.
How it works? It spins HDD down, switch off the LED and suggests to detach USB cable after that.
So WD, the 1st HDD manufacturer spins-down their HDD before unplugging (it seems that Ejecting unmounted drive it is not enough for them).
Safely remove for this HDD is working as expected on Ubuntu 12.04.3 too (in both Nautilus and palimpsest).