HDD power save settings

[Ice213]

Hi everyone,

Put together a new build recently and obviously reinstalled windows. But today I noticed that when I went to search for something or try to access the secondary HDD I've got (use an SSD as the primary), it hung for a second before deciding to let me access it. Same thing when I went to the start menu to search for something, I assume this is because it'll search all drives for whatever I am searching for.

I thought it might be an issue with the HDD powering itself off as all my games, OS, internet etc are on my SSD, so I don't think it gets accessed all that much. I went into the power saver settings and set it to never power down after a set period of activity. But I was a bit scared this might shorten the life of the drive so changed it back again, but since then it hasn't hung.

So I guess my main question is, is having that setting on 'never' to never power down the hard drives after some inactivity dangerous long term at all?

Thanks a lot guys

 

[UnworthyBean]

Arguably, It does more damage having it turn off when not used as it will be powering up and down more.

Keeping it on permanently won't do any damage, Many people here run servers where the disks are on 24/7 and they haven't had any downsides.

In short, You'll be fine

 

[Ice213]

Thanks for the speedy reply . Think I'll just disable it then. I always forget about all the power save settings W7 has on as default. I went out and left my PC on to download some of my steam catalog, came back and it had put itself to sleep after 15 mins...wasn't amused .