How to keep harddrives running even during standby/sleep?

darael

darael

darael

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10 Jul 2010
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I need to start clamping down on my computer's energy consumption. I have always had it running 24/7, entirely because of the stress and possible failure of harddrives and fans. All too often I have seen fans groan for minutes as the bearings warm up - or, more rarely, harddrives just suddenly point blank refuse to spin up one morning. :eek:

I have thought about a small external PSU for my two harddrives and six fans (2 x GPU, 2 x 12cm case, 92mm case, 1 CPU). But really keeping the fans running would be a little over the top, considering how much they are to replace. What is much more important is the harddrives, and keeping them running.

Right now my PC uses about 120w (I will check later) while sat there doing nothing. Ideally I'd like the harddrives running 24/7, and the machine to enter hibernate or standby when not in use.

Any ideas?
 
Maybe hooking up the HardDrives to external power (Other PSU) and bridging that so it never powers down could work. As my PC powers USB devices while switched off my External HDD Never turns off. This could also be great for boot times, although will have an impact on the HDD Life.

So;

1. Wire up as normal just with HDD's/Fans hooked up to second power supply.

2. Use this to bridge second PSU to keep it on while not plugged in to MoBo
YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK Value PSU Bridging Connector (24 Pin) £1.3
Total : £3.58 (includes shipping : £1.90).



3. Profit?

PS: I'd recommend testing on a not so important HDD for 1/2 Days to see effects
 
What do you use your pc for?

do you stream media around the home or just simply dont turn it off incase your hdd/fan fails?

i used mine for media streaming for a while but in the end i just bought a NAS device instead, stays on all day and you can set them up in raid incase 1 hdd fails etc etc.
 
The cost of running your PC 24/7 far outweighs any wear and tear related costs. Fans are a few pounds and hard drives generally last many years of power cycling. If the data is important you should back it up anyway. turn your PC off if you don;t access it.

If you need to download torrents or access hard drive data 24/7 get a NAS
 
darael said:
I need to start clamping down on my computer's energy consumption. I have always had it running 24/7, entirely because of the stress and possible failure of harddrives and fans. All too often I have seen fans groan for minutes as the bearings warm up - or, more rarely, harddrives just suddenly point blank refuse to spin up one morning. :eek:

I have thought about a small external PSU for my two harddrives and six fans (2 x GPU, 2 x 12cm case, 92mm case, 1 CPU). But really keeping the fans running would be a little over the top, considering how much they are to replace. What is much more important is the harddrives, and keeping them running.

Right now my PC uses about 120w (I will check later) while sat there doing nothing. Ideally I'd like the harddrives running 24/7, and the machine to enter hibernate or standby when not in use.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

This dosen't make any sense to me, you could possibly keep the fans running if you wanted by doing this but the whole point of the computer hibernating is to write information to the HDD before hibernating. enter hibernation turning HDD off, then when awekening from hibernation read the files it wrote just before going into hibernation so it knows what state the computer was in before it hibernated.

if you set it so the disk keeps running its going against the entire point of hibernating the computer?
 
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