Windows 7 - Hard Drive - Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle or Never

Brink

How to Turn Off Hard Disk After so many Minutes of being Idle or Never

Information

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 HDD's and not SSD's (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.
Scheduled tasks.
The loading of services or drivers.

When these items either read from or write to the hard disk, the hard disk idle timer is reset.

For more information see: Hard disks do not turn off after your computer has been idle

Here's How:

1. Open the advanced power settings for your selected power plan. (see screenshot below)

2. To Turn Off Hard Disks After Idle
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)

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

ben859420 · 02-06-2011

Was having trouble finding the "Never" option, finally figured it out; you must select Zero Minutes.

Brink · 02-06-2011

Hello Ben, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Thank you for posting back your feedback. I have updated the tutorial to help others avoid having the same trouble.

Trinitrotoluene · 10-09-2011

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.

Brink · 10-09-2011

You're welcome Trinitrotoluene.

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.

Exlans · 02-22-2012

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 ??

Brink · 02-22-2012

Hello Exlans,

I'm sorry, but this is a all or none type setting. It would be nice to be able to select to apply this to only specified HDD's though.

Windows 7 - Hard Drive - Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle or Never

Hard Drive - Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle or Never

Hard Drive - Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle or Never problems?