Hard Drive Spin Down

speedownsie

I haven't seen this queried before.

I would like to have the option to turn off hard drive spin down, consequently allowing for hard drives to be spun down when not in use.

I've noticed that WHS 2011 seems to spin hard drives down, but i'm not sure how much that is down to the OS or the hardware.

I would still like the option to switch off hard drive spin down, appreciating that hard drive life is almost certainly reduced.

Shane

Start, Control Panel, Hardware, Power Options, Change plan settings, Change advanced power settings, Hard disk, Turn off hard disk after... (use zero for never).

speedownsie

Thank you v. much.

hopester

Just done a quick test on this and the drivepool service appears to stop this from working, the drives never spin down. Stop the service and it starts working again.

JonO

You can check some of the various reports available on the web about this, but from what I've been able to glean it almost never pays off to spin down drives.  Unless they are going to be off for days the wear due to spin up and thermal change is far more than the stable spinning wear.  The days of worn bearings are long gone.  You are at far greater risk of having failure due to constant spin up cycling then you have of just wearing out the drive.

I have three drives that have been running constantly for 6 years.  Heat is a major enemy of drives but heating and cooling is worse.

Jon

saitoh183

You can check some of the various reports available on the web about this, but from what I've been able to glean it almost never pays off to spin down drives.  Unless they are going to be off for days the wear due to spin up and thermal change is far more than the stable spinning wear.  The days of worn bearings are long gone.  You are at far greater risk of having failure due to constant spin up cycling then you have of just wearing out the drive.

I have three drives that have been running constantly for 6 years.  Heat is a major enemy of drives but heating and cooling is worse.

Jon

I agree...i have 10 drives of all sizes and they are running all the time and are only spinned down for Windows update reboots and its been like that for the past 3yrs and i havent lost a drive yet