Does second HD spin when unused?

izit · 21 Feb 2011 at 13:11

Hey, I am considering a SSD for a quiet pc build and wondered if my second hard drive would spin at all while I'm not using it as long as I don't put any drivers or services on it?
Thanks!

rpstewart · 21 Feb 2011 at 13:48

The power options can be set to spin it down after X many minutes of inactivity. It will take a few seconds to spin up once you do access it though.

izit · 21 Feb 2011 at 17:58

That didn't seem to work, and even when I make drive 'offline' in computer management or unplug the SATA wire it still spins?

Efour · 21 Feb 2011 at 18:39

what rpstewart said...power options but hmmm?!

izit · 21 Feb 2011 at 19:27

I put on '2 mins power off HD' after 2 mins I can hear and feel it spinning. I pull Sata out and wait another 2 mins and it's still spinning. I have a lot of drives so looking for another option than to have to plug or unplug their power every time I want to use the drives.

rpstewart · 21 Feb 2011 at 20:15

If you disconnect the data cable it will stay spinning - the spin down signal comes down the data cable.

The drive will only spin down if it isn't being accessed - that's very different from not having anything important on it. Search indexing, virus scanning, all sorts of things could be accessing the disk.

izit · 22 Feb 2011 at 01:25

hanks for replies, 1 has my old windows xp and the other just media such as videos and music so I'm pretty sure nothing is being used on the HD. I don't even use installed anti viruses and disabled everything I could find in startup and services and all drives are still spinning.

el Kuarlos · 22 Feb 2011 at 01:36

which hd is it? I use os and apps from ssd and hd only gets activated when i manage data, torrent or play games, I notice it spinning up when i first do these things, samsing 1tb f3, win7

izit · 22 Feb 2011 at 16:32

It's f3 with windows, samsung sp250 and seagate 500.
On windows7 they all continue to spin untill the main hard drive sleeps.
But on my other windows xp PC they go to sleep after about 20 mins at same time as monitor even though I set it to 3 min, then when I move mouse it starts spinning again even with nothing running.

Phal · 22 Feb 2011 at 16:47

Youll need to check which Power/Performance profile is configured on your computer. High performance will leave drives spinning 24/7 where as other profiles will spin them down after set periods of time. You can also configure your own personal power profiles if need be.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-create-or-delete-a-power-plan-scheme

izit · 22 Feb 2011 at 23:28

I've tried on Balanced and Power Saver, I use custom in balanced usually but i've still had no luck in getting them to go standby.

kona786 · 23 Feb 2011 at 00:09

if you have speedfan or other temp software running on the hardrive it will keep it awake.

izit · 19 Mar 2011 at 08:00

Well a fresh install on IDE instead of AHCI mode worked.