Software to spin down hdd

Joe42 · 30 Apr 2006 at 13:13

I'm looking for some software to allow me to spin down my harddisks individually.

Windows power management can do it for all drives but not for individual drives.

I've got one drive in a silent enclosure and i want to spin the other two down to reduce nosie at certain times. I can open the case an unplug them but i would rather be able to do it from within windows.

Searching around i've found references to a program called hdd sleep but i can't seem to find it.

Any ideas?

Joe42 · 5 May 2006 at 23:03

Bump. There must be something out there that can spin down disks... :confused:

Joe42 · 6 May 2006 at 20:45

Clarkey said:
im not sure, but you deffinatly shouldnt be unplugging them while they are on

They are sata, which is hot-plugable. I'm not sure if its ok to unplug the power tho, but i do it with molex connectors and i haven't fried anything yet...

Joe42 · 7 May 2006 at 09:51

Clarkey said:
well it seems I was right all along then doesnt it

No.
Sata is hot-swapable on all sata devices i have encountered so far. It is a hot-swapable interface.

Sata devices will appear in the 'Safely remove hardware' box and you should use this to disconnect them before unplugging them to prevent data corruption. However this is the same as usb memory sticks and i've never damaged one of those through not disabling it before unplugging it. Sata has been designed to be hot-swapable so i would think its very unlikely to cause data corruption.

And i don't think there is a need to unplug power at the same time because unplugging the data cable will spin down the drive, so unplugging the power after that should be ok.