On/off switch

[Guest]

I would like to be able to turn off/on a couple of storage SATA HDD's while the 'puters running, so I figured I might put a switch in the red wire supplying power.
Also would like to do same to SATA DVD burner.
Then I wondered, does it run on 12 or 5 volt?
Will it something explode if I try this?

Best I post a Q on THG. Advice please?

 

[aziraphale]

I don't know for sure, but I really think this is a bad idea. IF you try it, make sure the switch is buffered to avoid spikes. But anyhow; I think your operating system won't recognize it in the best case. I could imagine it would crash entirely. For the cables: red is 5V and yellow is 12V. You will need both of them. Usually the motor needs 12V and the electronics run on 5V.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, think I'll drop the idea,

 

[mkaibear]

Really, don't do this

It will work (probably) if you have a hot-plug capable SATA controller and disk. But the risks of shorting a hot wire across your drive or worse... *eeshk*

 

[chuckshissle]

Okay do this instead.

Right click desktop and open "Display Properties"

On "Screen Saver" tab open "Power"

Now you are in "Power Option Properties"

In "Power Schemes" tab locate "Turn off hard disks"

It will give you the options to power down hard disks when not in use.

As for my system I have some storage disks and I have them power down after 10 minutes of no use or idle. This will stop the hard disks from spinning and goes to stand by mode, kind of. Saves power that way.

This will apply to all the hard disks in the system but don't worry about your main drive since if you use it often it will not power down.

 

[mkaibear]

I concur! Chuck's idea is much better than yours!

 

[goldragon_70]

Chucks Idea is better for what you want to do. But you can set up the system to turn the power off on drives, but that's used for swapping drives out on the fly, and uses a key system. 8)

 

[chuckshissle]

Did you consider using external storage unit?

 

[nukemaster]

with power down HDD's only the onces not in use power down?

I never did know that?(thought they all went down together) think of all the power i been wasting with 6 drives

 

[Guest]

Excellent, this gives me exactly what I want. Much thanks to all for your helpfulness

 

[chuckshissle]

Yeah, when you do this all drives that are not in use will power down. So if your storage disks don't get used a lot then you should do this.

Also independently configure the Recycle Bin for each hard drive. If you don't, everytime you open the recycle bin or delete a file from it, it will spin up all the drives in the system.

*************************************************

This is how you can configure each drive's recycle bin.

Right click on "Recycle Bin" and click "Properties"

On "Global" tab click on the "Configure drives independently"

For the main drive use around 10% of the space.

And for the rest of the drives like the storage you should click on the "Do not move files to the recycle bin. Remove files when deleted".

Hit "Appy" when done with the settings.

This way if you open the Recycle Bin it will not cause the rest of the drives/storage to spin up.

But be careful when deleting files on the storage cause it will erase it right away. Chances are you don't erase much on your storage so you more likey to keep this setting.

The main disk should be running normally and the deleted files will go to the recycle bin.

* Also if you listen to music from your storage set the time to 10 minutes that way the storage won't spin down and spin up every 5 minutes to download the following music.

* There will be a small lag to spin up the disks drives, just so you know.

 

[nukemaster]

After reading your message i went and did it.

Came home from work(there was a power out so my machine was waiting at the login screen). All drives sleeping. login open my computer go to dmy docs) its already spinning

E(video) F(more files) G(PVR) all sleeping. nice!

The spin up sounds kind of painful for the drives if it does this often so i am thinking 1 hour to spin down.

Thanks for the info

 

[torque79]

as for the recycle bin, when you delete stuff just use Shift-Delete to delete permanently. Recycle bin is absolutely useless.