I have a computer with two harddrives in it, i use one for my OS (Windows XP) and the other is just for backing up my important files. The second harddrive (backup) gives off a lot of noise even when i am not accessing anything from it. I was wondering if there was a way that i could make the backup drive turn off or at least spin down when its idle, i am willing to sacrifice the time it would take to spin up when i need it. I have been browsing the net for a while now and the only solutions i have seen so far are: 1. physically remove the drive from the PC when i am not using it, but i don't want to have to open my computer and risk damaging anything in it. 2. Buy a USB enclosure. This seems like the most reasonable solution. But i am still wondering if there is any software that can allow me to do this, of any setting already in windows that i can use. Thanks in advance for your response
You can set your hard drives to power down after various periods of inactivity, but you have to set both drives. If you use the system disk more often, and only rarely use the backup drive, maybe that will suit you. Control Panel, Power Options.
Ok, another question then; if i do set both through the power management for say 5 minutes, how will that be judged? Will that time be the time of inactivity for each disk separately, so even while i am working on my primary hard drive the inactivity time for the backup will still be counting if its not in use. and if both are powered down, when i do something will both spin up, or just the one that is in use?
As far as I know the periods of inactivity are counted separately. Also spinup/spindown. You can find out easily enough!
It works just as I wanted it to. They have independent times, i set it to three minutes, at which time the backup turns off and i can still work on my primary. The only time my backup is on is when i start up and when the computer is shutting down. Thanks a lot man
