Disable pendrive blinking in Linux

Posted by Joey Adams on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Joey Adams
Published on 2010-01-17T04:55:07Z Indexed on 2010/03/14 10:25 UTC
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linux

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usb-flash-drive

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led

I recently bought a 16GB Super Talent pen drive that seems to work well for running the Ubuntu Live "CD" in persistent mode (see this for how I installed it). One slightly annoying thing, however, is that this pen drive has a bright red light on it that stays on when it's idle.

Is there a way to make the light stay off at least when the pen drive is not performing IO? I'm not even sure it's possible to do. If there is (in Linux), I'm guessing it boils down to some ioctl invoked by some utility. Otherwise, I imagine it would involve hacking the firmware or simply opening up the pen drive and removing the LED :D

Then again, I guess it keeps the LED on to indicate that the drive should not be removed.

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