Solved keeping drives "awake"

[Zoloft]

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

 

[Brink]

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.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/140592-hard-drive-turn-off-hard-disk-after-idle-never.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Zoloft]

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

 

[Brink]

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.

 

[Zoloft]

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

 

[Brink]

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.

 

[libastral]

I'm having a similar issue, but setting hdd sleep to "never" didn't solve it, HDD still has to spin up after some time (it's a laptop WD with it's obsessive head parking issue, I did a DOS bootable firmware setting adjust supposed to disable that, but it's still the same). I'm also running it as a secondary storage drive with SSD as system drive.
Is there some app that can keep HDD awake? I can only think of running utorrent with a dead torrent in it so it constantly accesses the disk but doesn't cause any real load.

 

[GokAy]

What is the model number of the drive? I will ask CKWD (WD representative) to comment on this issue.

If it is an IntelliPower drive it is supposed to power down when inactive. But no idea if laptop drives have the feature.

 

[libastral]

What is the model number of the drive? I will ask CKWD (WD representative) to comment on this issue.

If it is an IntelliPower drive it is supposed to power down when inactive. But no idea if laptop drives have the feature.

It's WD6400BEVT. I used WDidle to disable head parking, but apparently it did no effect or this is a Windows issue.
Using WDidle3 to disable Head Parking w/Western Digital Green Hard Drives

 

[GokAy]

Windows doesn't turn off HDD unless you specify it in the Power Plan.

That program is for WD Green Drives (WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0, WD7500AYPS-01ZKB0, WD7501AYPS-01ZKB0), yours is not listed.

I couldn't read through all of this, maybe you can find something relevant WD 750GB (and 640GB) Scorpio HDs in Unibody MacBook/Pros

 

[libastral]

Windows doesn't turn off HDD unless you specify it in the Power Plan.

That program is for WD Green Drives (WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0, WD7500AYPS-01ZKB0, WD7501AYPS-01ZKB0), yours is not listed.

I couldn't read through all of this, maybe you can find something relevant WD 750GB (and 640GB) Scorpio HDs in Unibody MacBook/Pros

Yeah, I guess it's the inherent flaw in the drive, I found this and apparently no one has a real solution.
Very annoying head parking and spinning down of a ... - WD Community

 

[CKWD]

Hi libastral and thanks GokAy, again, for PM-ing me about this thread; I was out of town for a few days.

Libastral, can you post your laptop specs, including the drives' details? Which WD drive do you have? GokAy is generally correct, if this is a WD Green or Red, they are IntelliPower and are supposed to do the spin down after being inactive for some time.

But it looks like you have a Scorpio Blue drive, these models were made with 5200 RPM to 5400RPM, a bit slower than the usual 7200 RPM, so may be it's that difference you are experiencing? Or more likely it's the WD SecurePark feature you are experiencing, exactly which parks the head off the disk surface.

You could have the option to go to power management and probably slow the process down somehow. Otherwise, I do not believe the head parking can be fully disabled, it s a feature in the design of the drive. Unlike this older model, the newer WD Blue does not have the head parking feature.

May be this thread from the WD Community can help you?

Support Answers

Please make sure for every new issue/problem/query you make a new thread.

CK_WD

 

[libastral]

Okay, I think the hdd is just got bad over the years that's why the motor behaves wonky: it only powers on when I open a file from the HDD, then instantly shuts down (yeah, I don't think that this is some kind of power saving feature). It was never like this before. Is there some app that writes to HDD every second to keep it awake? Like that, but that has only one minute.
NoSleepHD Stops External Hard Drives from Shutting Down

 

[CKWD]

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any such programs that could be reading/writing off of/to the drive. I don't believe that is a wise decision, also. From what you've said, if the drive is now behaving like this, but hasn't before, then may be this isn't just the SecurePark feature of the drive, may be these are performance drops and lags. Check its health, just to be sure.

WD DLG:
Support Answers

CK_WD

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Windows doesn't turn off HDD unless you specify it in the Power Plan.

That program is for WD Green Drives (WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0, WD7500AYPS-01ZKB0, WD7501AYPS-01ZKB0), yours is not listed.

I couldn't read through all of this, maybe you can find something relevant WD 750GB (and 640GB) Scorpio HDs in Unibody MacBook/Pros

Yeah, I guess it's the inherent flaw in the drive, I found this and apparently no one has a real solution.
Very annoying head parking and spinning down of a ... - WD Community

Technically, it is a potentially annoying design feature intended to reduce power consumption, not a flaw. I would never use a Green inside my computer but they work great for backup drives that connected only long enough to update a backup. The spin down and head parking feature actually is an advantage for me since it reduces the chances of platter damage when I remove the backup drive from my hot swap bay.

 

[libastral]

Finally solved it with CrystalDiskInfo by disabling APM and AAM.