I'm certain that this is a problem with the drive firmware or USB controller and not Linux per se. I use several USB storage devices, enclosures on Linux every

I'm certain that this is a problem with the drive firmware or USB controller and not Linux per se. I use several USB storage devices, enclosures on Linux everyday including using separate USB ssd caches. Can you check with your storage device managing software on Windows on whether it has the sleep option or spin down set? I remember seeing one in the Seagate SW on mac although it has an OS level option to put HDD to sleep when not in use. If that doesn't work you can try using hdparm or sdparm to modify the power management and spin down timer. If everything else fails then disable USB autosuspend in the kernel boot option.