How to Turn Off Hard Disk After so many Minutes of being Idle or Never
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This will show you how to have your hard disks to be either turned off after however many minutes you set of being idle, or to never be turned off in Windows 7 and Vista.
This setting will only affect internal HDDs and not for SSDs (solid state drives).
When set to turn off hard disks after idle, you will notice a brief delay of a few seconds when you try to access a turned off hard disk as it spins back up and is turned back on automatically as needed. Having your hard disks to be turned off after being idle can help save energry and extend a laptop's battery life.
Note
If you have the hard disks set to be turned off after X amount of minutes of being inactive, then this behavior can be caused if any disk activity occurs, whether it is caused by user input or system tasks. Disk activity of any type resets the hard disk idle timer, and this can increase the amount of time it takes for your hard disk to turn off.
Windows is designed to automatically perform maintenance tasks to improve performance and reliability. When your computer is on AC power and is idle, system maintenance tasks may be able to run for a few minutes. These system maintenance tasks include disk-layout optimization to improve performance and preparing automatic system restoration points to increase reliability. Typically, these tasks occur the first time you leave your computer idle after you start it. These tasks ensure that the system maintains its performance and reliability even after long use. Because these tasks involve reading and writing to the hard disk, the hard disk idle time is reset regularly during this maintenance period.
There are other items that can reset the hard disk idle timer. These items can include:
Paging operations.
Windows Update checking the system state.
Event logging.
Network detection such as DHCP or Autonet.
Third-party services such as quota software or an antivirus program.
A) Expand Hard disk and Turn off hard disk after, set how many minutes you want the hard disks to be idle for before being turned off, and click on OK. (see screenshot below) NOTE:The default setting is with 20 minutes.
B) Go to step 4.
3. To Never Turn Off Hard Disks
A) Expand Hard disk and Turn off hard disk after, set it to Never ( 0 minutes), and click on OK. (see screenshot below)
4. Close the Edit Plan Settings window. (see screenshot below step 1)
After reinstalling Windows today, I noticed this clicking sound coming from one of my HDDs. The clicking coinciding with a re-installation.... Must have been the power plan. I've now set my HDDs to never go to sleep.
It had me checking out SMART data and everything already, thinking it was a click of death at first. so I googled around for firmware updates, stumbling upon this topic by coincidence. I really can't remember I've also set my HDDs to never go to sleep last time I installed Windows. So thanks for reminding me, Brink!
From a power saving perspective, the default 20 minutes make sense. But it adds extra wear on the drive, if it needs to shutdown and bootup more.
System Manufacturer/Model Number Myself OS Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit Retail CPU Intel Core i7 930 Motherboard Gigabyte X58A UD3R 2.0 Memory KHX1600C8D3K3/6GX Graphics Card AMD Radeon 5870 Sound Card Creative X-Fi Titanium Monitor(s) Displays Samsung PX2370 Screen Resolution 1920x1080
Keyboard Logitech Illuminated Mouse Logitech G5 PSU Corsair HX850W Case CM690 II Advanced Cooling Case 2x front, 2x top, 1x bottom, 1x back CPU Mugen 2 rev.B Hard Drives 2x Samsung HD103SJ Raid0 (windows, apps, games)
2x Samsung HD204UI Raid1
1x WD3200KS Other Info Bipedal carbon based high-latency and small cache-sized biological operator behind the keyboard. What would you expect?!
Personally, setting the HDD's to turn off when idle is more useful if you let your computer run for long extended periods of time. If you are off and on the computer and put the computer to sleep inbetween, then setting the HDD's to turn off when idle will probably not be of much use.
Ok What about if i have more than one hard .. and i want only one hard disk to sleep if it become idle and other not .. so how i could do that if the option not giving me any choice ??
You said "This setting will only affect internal HDD's and not SSD's "
I confused
SSD's uses another power settings independent from Windows or what? Can you explain please?
I assume it has to do with the fact that SSDs have no moving parts and therefore can't "spin down" to save power. They are either in use or not in use---on or off.
System Manufacturer/Model Number Ignatz Special; 4 speed manual gearbox; factory air conditioning; one of one OS Windows 7 SP1, Home Premium, 64-bit CPU Intel Sandy Bridge i5-2500, not overclocked Motherboard Gigabyte H67A-UD3H-B3, full ATX Memory 4 GB Crucial DDR3-1333 Graphics Card none; graphics are integrated on CPU Sound Card onboard: Realtek ALC892; external: USB Behringer UF0-202 Monitor(s) Displays NEC 90GX2-BK 19" LCD Screen Resolution 800 x 640
Keyboard Leopold Tenkeyless with Cherry Blue switches, USB Mouse Logitech or Microsoft optical wired; either USB or PS 2 PSU Seasonic SS-560KM, modular Case Antec Solo II Cooling CPU: Scythe Big Shuriken; Case: Scythe Slipstream 800 & 500 Hard Drives System: Intel 320 Series SSD, 80 GB;
Data: Samsung Spinpoint 103SJ, 1 TB;
Backup: WD Caviar Green WD15EADS-00P8B0, 1.5TB Other Info Power consumption of this system, including monitor: 68 watts at idle; 144 watts at full load
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Quote: Originally Posted by nonpasaran 
