Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > General Storage > Can I prevent my hard drive to stop spinning? Spins up, freezes pc for

Can I prevent my hard drive to stop spinning? Spins up, freezes pc for

Forum Storage : General Storage - Can I prevent my hard drive to stop spinning? Spins up, freezes pc for

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crewxp   08-22-2009 at 11:59:53 AM

Hey, I just installed Windows 7, lost all my old settings. But I notice something really annoying that happens.

When I start up a program, or open a folder, Windows shows the loading icon, I can't click on anything, then I hear my hard drive spin up. 2 seconds later, my computer is back to normal.

Can I prevent my hard drive from stopping, so that I dont get that few second delay every now and then? Happens about once an hour or so. Annoying!

Thx

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englandr753   08-22-2009 at 02:55:22 PM

That's either an old hard drive or you have a hard drive problem about to surface.

Go to the hard drive manufacturers site and download their hard drive tool program. You can check the drive with that to see if it tests out ok or not...

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------------------------------ EVGA 780i mobo | EVGA GTX 275 | Q9550 OC @ 3.6Ghz | 8Ghz 1066Mhz Corsair Memory | Corsair 1000 watt PSU | Coolermaster Stacker CM830 Case | Ultra TEC CPU Cooler | Vista Ultimate 64

 

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rand_79   08-22-2009 at 07:37:51 PM

its part of windows power management in windows 7

I have 2 raids, a 3disk system/game drive raid 0--didnt have this problem

but my 2disk data array would spin down then spin up in the middle of games etc freezing pc for about 2-3seconds.

Just go into the power management part of windows 7 and turn off HDD spindown. (set to never i think)

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crewxp   08-23-2009 at 04:17:19 AM

okay, thanks. heading home to try it now. can i set it only for my main drive, or does it apply to all of my drives?

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Bronze Storage badge sminlal   08-23-2009 at 05:55:47 AM

englandr753 wrote :

That's either an old hard drive or you have a hard drive problem about to surface.

I have a WD green drive in my system for bulk storage, and it spins down to conserve power after several seconds of inactivity. It sounds very much to me like the OP's drive may be doing the same thing.

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rand_79   08-23-2009 at 07:28:25 AM

Go to control panel

 

power options

 

click the change plan settings button (by the current power plan)

 

a power plan is like "high performance" or "balanced"

 

anyway choose the "change plan settings" button by the in use power plan

 

on the next screen choose "change advanced power settings"

 


then goto the hard drive section and

 

set
turn off hdd while plugged in to "never"

 

hit OK a couple times and you are done.


Message edited by rand_79 on 08-23-2009 at 07:29:44 AM
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jim144   08-23-2009 at 10:10:46 AM

Is it possible to turn off the WD Green's spindown?

Reason I ask is that I have a couple of 1TB WD Elements external drives, and they often spin down subsequently causing a delay when doing any type of Explorer or file dialog operation.

WD confirm that the spin-down cannot be turned off in the Elements drives.

So, I am considering a Green for my next internal drive upgrade, but not if it can't be kept awake all the time.

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englandr753   08-23-2009 at 12:25:39 PM

sminlal wrote :

I have a WD green drive in my system for bulk storage, and it spins down to conserve power after several seconds of inactivity. It sounds very much to me like the OP's drive may be doing the same thing.



I am forgetting about the green series power management. I don't use those so its easy to forget. Thanks for the correction...

------------------------------ EVGA 780i mobo | EVGA GTX 275 | Q9550 OC @ 3.6Ghz | 8Ghz 1066Mhz Corsair Memory | Corsair 1000 watt PSU | Coolermaster Stacker CM830 Case | Ultra TEC CPU Cooler | Vista Ultimate 64

 

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Prescott_666   08-23-2009 at 01:09:20 PM

I have been staying away from green drives because you seem to get the same specs for more money. Now it seems that the green drive decides for itself when it will spin down. If I want the drives to spin down I'd rather set it in the power management. I don't want it to be out of my control.

This is good information. Does anybody know what the period is when the drives shut themselves down?

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