External Hard drives not turning off when Xbox One X is off. How to report?

Hey, thanks for reaching out! Well, firstly, I have plenty of room on all of my drives, soooooooooooooo that is not a factor. I have my Xbox One X set to stand by as my power setting. And I do have my external drives set to turn off when my Xbox is turned
off. The "When Xbox is off, turn off the storage" is chosen in my settings. And I have my default drive as my external WD 4TB. With all that said, my Xbox is not choosing where a file is already sitting. And my
Xbox sees all of my drives all of the time.

I will try the "When Xbox is off, turn off the storage" as unchecked. Maybe that will make a difference . . . but if my default drive is an external drive . . . . and games are downloading there, new and updates . . . . . and "When Xbox is off, turn off
the storage" is checked . . . why would anything still be put there if "When Xbox is off, turn off the storage" it's off . .. . . ? I do understand the instructions, but as to what that means as far as "when xbox is this, external drives will do this" setting
it's hard to differentiate. Because you have the xbox that can be completely shut down vs. stand by, and how does those settings inform the "When Xbox is off, turn off the storage" setting. You tell me.

Thanks

B

Hi all, i recently noticed that the external hard drive attached to my console began whirring and going silent intermittently while the system is off. This has not been normal for my system and only began today. Anyone else notice this, and is it
a problem?

I have the SAME PROBLEM..I have the XBOX ONE X and a Western Digital 8TB USB/Adapter external hard drive..I always keep my xbox one x on instant on mode but everything is unchecked, like searching for updates, etc..so that it will NOT turn on I do it manually,
its checked off to turn off the xbox one when turned off, never had an issue til the recent update, when off the hard drive every few minutes will make a tick sound and a hum sound then turn off..every few min, thought it was the hard drive, reformatted it
yesterday, did the same darn thing, so I put the xbox one x into energy saving mode and guess what, PROBLEM SOLVED..but I cant stand energy save mode, so its something to do with this update and the hard drive with instant on mode, not sure what it is but
its VERY annoying wish someone could figure it out

Does the external hard drive ever turn off when the Xbox is off?

The console has a setting to turn external storage off when the console is turned off. It's in the power settings. However, for some reason, some externals do not turn off when the console is turned off, even when the "When Xbox is off, turn off storage" setting is enabled.

The second thing that will cause most externals to go to sleep is inactivity. Usually there is a setting in the drive's own firmware that says "go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity" or whatever.

Here's what I would recommend: -

1. If it's not already enabled, enable the "When Xbox is off, turn off storage" setting in the console's power settings, then test to see if the drive turns off when the Xbox is turned off.

2. If option 1 is no help and the drive never turns off, disable that setting, then see if the external turns off after a period of inactivity once the Xbox has been turned off.

If you unplug the drive when the console is off, obviously, if you have the console set to automatically update your games/apps, it won't be able to update anything on the external while the Xbox is off as it's not connected. That is the primary downside of what you're currently doing.

"I noticed my HDD blinks off and on whenever the xbox console is turned off."

In the console settings, there is an option to turn off the external storage when you turn off the console, so make sure you enable that. Even with that option enabled though, if a new dashboard/game/app update is released, that will get pushed to your console
automatically (if you have automatic updates enabled), so the hard drive will turn on to enable that content to be downloaded, then it'll turn off again when it's done. Also, if you buy a game via Xbox.com or SmartGlass, the hard drive will turn on and the
console will download the game, then it'll turn off again.

That said, there does appear to be a bug in the latest preview dashboard that causes your external hard drive to turn on and off repeatedly while the console is off, even though it's not downloading anything, so be wary of that. I've reported the issue and
it's been acknowledged by MS staff.

Is your console an Xbox 360 or Xbox One ?

Double check if the external hard drive is actually being detected, sometimes the USB connection might be loose. If the external hard drive is not detected, turn off the console

and then double check the USB connector is firmly plugged in, then turn console back on and see if external hard drive appears.

Also another thing to check... some brands of external hard drive have a power light when turned on. Check if the power light is on.