Slow shutdown when Hard Disks already sleeping


  1. Wallboy
    Posts : 6
    Windows 7 Enterprise x64
       New #1

    Slow shutdown when Hard Disks already sleeping


    I have an SSD as my primary windows drive and a 1TB WD Blue and 4TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk. Both drives go to sleep after awhile when I'm not using them as expected, but when I shutdown my PC Windows seems to want to wake one (or both) of the drives on the "Shutting down..." message screen delaying the shutdown around 5 seconds longer. If the drives are already awake, then the shutdown is very fast.

    Is this just the normal behavior that Windows needs to wake the drives momentarily before shutting down? It's not really a big deal, just curious.

    Thanks.
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  3. carwiz
    Posts : 4,161
    Windows 7 Pro-x64
       New #2

    Yes, that is normal. If you have Write Caching enabled, Windows must instruct the drive to flush the buffers (final write) before closing. If the drive is idle or asleep, it has to wake before that operation can occur. It's better to leave write caching enabled as it can save many seconds over the course of the day rather than gaining a few seconds at shutdown.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Slow shutdown when Hard Disks already sleeping-write-caching.jpg  
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  4. carwiz
    Posts : 4,161
    Windows 7 Pro-x64
       New #3

    I should also mention that if your PC is not connected to an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), that check box should NOT be used. As it says, a power loss could cause a loss of data.
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  6. Wallboy
    Posts : 6
    Windows 7 Enterprise x64
    Thread Starter
       New #4

    Aha! So that's why they need to wake up before shutdown. Thanks for letting me know, I'll just leave the write caching enabled. :)
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