How do i stop HDD from randomly starting?

[Radec]

Is there a way to stop my hard drives from randomly starting up to spin for a few mins then power back down?
Quite annoying during night time.

I don't know why it happens. My OS is on a SSD, but the HDD's will be active when I don't need them.

 

[FoxEye]

You could use Process Monitor/Resource Monitor to find which process is accessing the drive... Could be AV, or a number of other things.

 

[Wrinkly]

What hardware / software are you using?

Applications such as antivirus, Steam, GOG and even Sandisk's Dashboard can wake a sleeping HD. I have noticed some people having this problem due to some forms of software protection. For me it was Sandisk's Dashboard that was using VDS.EXE (Virtual Disk Service) which in turn spun up my sleeping drives.

Start by keeping resource monitor (disk tab) open so you can quickly switch to it to see what programs are accessing what files when the drive(s) spin up. Make a note of the time then check both the event viewer and task scheduler for clues.