Hard Drive Power Settings

[NomNom]

So I've been thinking about this for a while now.

What is better for a hard drives health, letting it switch off automatically after 20mins of inactivity or keeping it running for as long as the Pc is on.

For as long as I can remember I have always kept my 5 hard drives on the 20mins switch off setting that is default to Windows 7. My drives are always kept cool with a 120mm fan and are kept on these Coolermaster rails with built in rubber pins to absorb vibrations.

But enough about that, I basically want to know what you think is better for a hard drive, keep it on for long periods of time 24 - 48 hours or have it switch off after 20mins of not being used.

 

[nelis]

that setting I think is for os drive so don't let it switch off. Only o it for storage drives etc etc. If you are running a green power hard drive your drive will do that automatically.

 

[CataclysmZA]

The setting only saves you a couple of watts in electricity in idle mode, so it doesn't have any real bearing on performance aside from initial access time, since the OS then has to wake up the drive from sleep mode in order to access data from it. Head parking when the drive is asleep used to be a problem because it could cause extra strain, but has been reduced or solved in newer generation drives.

 

[HavocXphere]

There is no "correct" setting since its a compromise between HDD life & electricity bill. Where exactly on that range you fall depends on what you care more about.

Personally I prefer to just boost the time a bit. i.e. 40 mins.

The head parking isn't the problem...its the spinning up again which puts a strain on the HDD.

If you're out to save juice rather sleep the entire PC.

that setting I think is for os drive so don't let it switch off. Only o it for storage drives etc etc. If you are running a green power hard drive your drive will do that automatically.

Affects all drives except externals afaik. The OS drive generally has enough activity on it to keep awake regardless of what you set it to. External drives have their own built in logic & overriding that is a mission.

 

[chrisc]

I just let the entire PC sleep after 60 mins of inactivity. The screen sleeps after 10 mins and the rest as I said. I have had PCs since 1983 and always done it like this. In the MS-DOS days, there were not such luxury iitems and you had to download little apps to do this. Some worked, most did not.

 

[NomNom]

So the general consensus is that it does put extra strain on the hard drive head every time it needs to spin up again when you are trying to access it. I am not concerned about the cost of power since I pay a constant fee for electricity, this is all about what puts strain on the hard drive the most whether it is being on longer or having to spin up when needed.

Right now my setting is on Never and my Pc is on for about 20 hours and then I switch it off till the next day.