# Turning off secondary hard drive



## nabl3t (Nov 30, 2008)

What I would like to do is turn off my secondary drive, so my main (system one) remains running.
Please dont refer me to power management options, as that doesnt let you choose which drive you are turning off.

Looking for system solution in windows 7, or in last case some simple utility, not wanting to buy any extra hdd racks for just that.

thanks for help


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Try RevoSleep: http://revosleep.realspooky.de/

Doesn't work perfectly for me but it does put the drive to sleep and wakes it up when exiting, can't seem to be able to click to wake it up without exiting but that's not a huge problem and could just be something with my system.


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## Frozwire (Jun 20, 2014)

nabl3t said:


> What I would like to do is turn off my secondary drive, so my main (system one) remains running.
> thanks for help


You are doing this for what purpose? If all you want is power conservation or power efficiency then why just not use or buy WD Green drive as it is designed to power down itself when not in use or when it is not active.


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## nabl3t (Nov 30, 2008)

Frozwire said:


> You are doing this for what purpose? If all you want is power conservation or power efficiency then why just not use or buy WD Green drive as it is designed to power down itself when not in use or when it is not active.


Purposes should be obvious and there are many. 
90% of time my second hdd is running in vain since im using my system drive for most tasks.
So purposes are: 
To save electrical energy, 
to save money, 
to save planet, 
to keep hdd in good condition, 
to reduce noise, 
to reduce produced overal PC heat, 
Do you need more purposes should i continue on ? 

And btw I actually do have WD green indeed, and didnt know its powering itself down while not being in use. Where and how can I verify that my model is actually doing that? Because whenever I do access my second drive it responds immediately without any delays. So doesnt seem to me that it would be working that way.

@Triple6. I'll try it out, but maybe Frozwire is right, and I will not need to, if my hdd is somehow able to do it itself as he claims.


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

I put mine in an External ... Mainly to protect it from something that may go wrong in the tower.
I only use the Black series for the 5yr warranty _(built better)_


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## crjdriver (Jan 2, 2001)

> Purposes should be obvious and there are many.
> 90% of time my second hdd is running in vain since im using my system drive for most tasks.
> So purposes are:
> To save electrical energy,
> ...


Honestly do you think you are going to "Save the planet" with 12 watts of pw??? That is the approx pw usage of a green drive [while being used ie read/write] While not in actual use, it is around 5 watts. If you just want to have it pw down while not in use, then why not use windows built in pw options? That will pw down the drive after whatever time interval you select. BTW I would think you would "Save the planet" much more by using a better quality drive so you would not have to replace it so often. The green drive is only a 2yr warranty vs a 5yr warranty for a black or raptor drive; less mfg, less waste, less of everything.

You could also use a ssd drive. It uses .2w while being accessed and .1w at idle AND makes no noise. That would really save on energy over a mech hd 

If you are so intent on saving energy, use linux. You can set individual drives to pw down at whatever amount of time you want. In fact drives that are not system drives are not "Mounted" ie put in use until you access the drive. After you access the drive, it would be pw down at whatever amount of time you select ie 2min or whatever.


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## nabl3t (Nov 30, 2008)

I do have SSD. We are talking about second drive which is WD green 1TB. I do intend to shut down / sleep only second drive, so Im not going to install linux because of this.

- Would putting disk to external small usb case make hdd to respon slower? 

- Also putting it there wouldnt solve shutdown/sleep issue, so I guess I would have to manually unplug it each time right?


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

USB is indeed slower than SATA.

You would turn it off using the power button in either an enclosure or drive bay; either one would need to come with a power button.


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Triple6 said:


> would need to come with a power button.


This is the only external I've been able to find that has a front panel power switch ....
All the others have it hidden on the back panel or no switch at all.
It's USB3 if you computer has USB3 ... _(that's about as fast as SATA for practical external purposes)_
You may have to reboot the computer each time you use the power switch when connect eSATA


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

> You may have to reboot the computer each time you use the power switch when connect eSATA


You can get away with Disable/enable in device manager.


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## nabl3t (Nov 30, 2008)

Strange that only one case has power button. Plugging / unplugging would be annoying.
I do have USB3 yes, but if sata is still faster I'd use that .

Last reply about disabling / enabling HDD in device manager wouldnt do just what I want from it? I'd be doing this only when leaving pc running overnight probably, or being afk for long time. As long as reboot would not be needed in this case, that would be bit contraproductive too..

The more I use windows, the more im finding how limited this system actually is.. 
(see my previous topic about windows context menu and mouse behavior configuration.. Some really basic things im asking in both cases, and seems like its not so for windows7 )


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Use the USB3.0 ... It's more that fast enough for most external operations. 
Re-Booting for eSATA would depend on your System/Computer and if the external contains a Bootable OS.
I like to have my other HDD/SSDs to have a backup Bootable OS.
That's one reason why I like my enclosures .. I can always physically swap HDDs


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## nabl3t (Nov 30, 2008)

Noyb said:


> Use the USB3.0 ... It's more that fast enough for most external operations.


We are talking about internal drive here though. Its you who is pushing me to go into external 
If they dont tend to have shut down / sleep button its pointless for me. Plugging and unplugging usb sounds annoying enough. I'd rather use some software that would do that for me. And from what you say I believe USB3 would still be slower than sata and suitable for ext. disks mainly.

Besides I already have one "external" hdd without rack for back up purpose.


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