How to turn off HDD

[Stonedfish]

Hello folks,

what I was trying to do was manually or automatically turn off the HDD in my system for the following reasons:

1. Silence
2. Extend the lifespan

I have a HDD that I only use for mass storage - big documents and CAD models. Also I have to note that I use it very rarely, like once in a week or sometimes just 2-3 times a day. I use SSD as my main drive and I keep everything I access regulary on that drive. I've tried using the power plan option to turn off HDD after 6sec of it being inactive, but although the drive isn't being accessed at all, it takes up to 10min for it to turn off (stop spinning). I was also wondering if using the 6sec time to turn off HDD could impact my SSD's performance, or it will never go inactive due to the OS being installed on it? It would be awesome if there was an option to turn it off manually and then let it start spinning when I access it, or leave it completely turned off untill I access it and then turn it back off manually. I'm using a define r5 and my system is unhearable, at least for me, in every scenario except gaming and editing/modelling. I am also using a Maximus VII Ranger so I was wondering if there is an option I could use in the bios or some of the board's software?

Win 10 enterprise x64

Thanks in advance.

[Bl00dgod]

unplug the HDD?

but letting it start and stop that much shortens the lifetime

[Stonedfish]

If I was using it 2-3 times a day, I would just keep it spinning all the time, but there are times when I don't have to use it at all for couple of weeks or maybe even like 2 months, so I don't want it to make noise if it doesn't have to. I also never know when I'm going to need it, and if I will just have to transfer 1 file from it or 10GB of files, so I really do want to leave it off but have it accessible without opening the case, if that's possible?

in honesty, the lifespan will be far more shortened by making the drive spool up and down constantly than it would by just leaving it running and letting windows do it's thing with it

 

 

unplug the HDD?

but letting it start and stop that much shortens the lifetime

[bking]

What you're describing screams "external USB drive" to me.   That's basically the use case for them - very infrequent use, spun down 99+% of the time, mostly contains static content to be retrieved on occasion.

[Stonedfish]

What you're describing screams "external USB drive" to me.   That's basically the use case for them - very infrequent use, spun down 99+% of the time, mostly contains static content to be retrieved on occasion.

I also use an external usb drive for large data that I have to access more often