# Hard Disk Switch Diagram



## EyEBaLL_2003 (Jan 22, 2008)

Hi Everyone,
i am trying to make a set of switches to turn off my hard disks at night, i have 4 X RAID 1 all SATA and none are used over night, so thats 8 disks running when they dont need to be!

i have tried Powermanagement but i can hear them powering up and down all of the time so i decided to make some switches.

The switches should turn off the hard disks in pairs (as they are all in RAID 1 configs), i do not know much about electronics so i would be extremely grateful if someone could double check my diagram ( For health and safety more than anything, before i go ahead and do it)

I think i should be using a DPST switch but my local store didnt have any so i bought some DPDT and plan on leaving 2 connectors untouched. The switches i bought are 10A at 250VAC on one pole and 15A at 125VAC on the other pole.

I have attached a diagram.

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v434/zac/HardDiskSwitches.jpg
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thank you for any input on this


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## Frank4d (Sep 10, 2006)

Your diagram for switching the 5V and 12V is correct. You want to be absolutely certain Windows is not writing to the drives when you switch them off or data can be lost.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I think you need to find the process that is turning them on and fix that. If they're powering on randomly, something is causing it. If you turn them off, chances are you'll come back in the morning to an error stop because the process had a hard disk error.


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## EyEBaLL_2003 (Jan 22, 2008)

Thanks Frank4d  il get started on it.
@ John, these drives are just datastores, movies, pictures,games ect. Nothing but maybe the AV is touching these drives, so it really doesnt matter if i switch them off. I think the fact that they are connected to RAID controllers is screwing up the power management side of things. If i do however encounter a stop error i will heed your advice and use filemon or something to track down the cause, but i doubt that it will error as they are all plug and play devices


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

We'll see.


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