keeping drives "awake"

I can't say for sure this is an SP1 issue, or not, since I purchased my new comp soon after SP1 came out, so never ran the old box with SP1, and never ran the new one without it. . . but, I've noticed that drives other than the C drive seem to cycle down much more frequently, or, at least, take more time to "wake" when they are accessed for the first time in a while. This is quite annoying, since my primary C drive is a small SSD, so I run only the OS and applications from it, everything else is kept on a second internal, and three externals.

My question is this, is there some setting somewhere that will keep drives from napping, or, make them sleep less deeply, to run with the metaphor, so there is no lag when I need to access files on them? Or perhaps is there some app out there that will gently ping drives at set intervals keeping them 'awake'?

Thanks as always for your time gents!

Russell

Hello Russell,

You can use the method in the tutorial below to set to never let the HDDs turn off, or set them to turn off after X amount of idle minutes.

Hard Drive - Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle or Never

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Exactly what I wanted! Thank you so very much. Having this set to never will not negatively effect hard drive life?

You're most welcome Russell. It really depends on how you are using the HDD's.

If you leave the computer turned on 24 hours a day or so, then having the HDD's to turn off after X amount of idle minutes/hours will help save some energy. If you are not off and on the computer, then it may also extend the HDD's life span some since it's not turned on when not in use.

If you are off and on the computer a lot randomly, then it may not make much sense to have the HDD's turn off when idle since you will be using it again shortly afterwards anyways. It could actually shorten the life span of the HDD's if they are constantly being spinned up (turned on) and spinned down (turned off) a lot in day everyday like that.

Comp is generally on 24/7, with the exception of the software install and updates and such. Drives are much like a car huh? You get the most wear and tear turning them on and off, rather than the use of them? Regardless, this makes me much happier, thanks again.

R

Yeah, pretty much. Turning them off and on 1 or 2 times a day would not hurt them. Having them constantly turn off and on quite a bit a day sure would though.

Of course, this has no effect on a SSD drive though since it doesn't have any moving parts.