HDD 'goes dormant' and has to reinitialize when not being accessed?

H

Harb

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 10, 2007
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155
I have 2 HDD's in my system, 1TB and 750GB Samsung Spinpoint F1's. The 1tb is my main drive and the 750gb is my media storge drive where I keep all movies, music, and anything I want to save/archive.

When the 750gb hasn't had any files accessed for a bit, it seems to go into a sleep mode or something. When I try to access anything on it after a period of inactivity, I get a 3-5 second delay, followed by a click and then the file opens. This happens with any file on the drive. If the drive is constantly used (typically when downloading/uploading torrents to/from it), this problem doesn't manifest.

Is this something I should be concerned about or something I can fix? The rig in question is in my signature.

Thanks!
 
No your computer is just spinning the disk down(turning off) to conserver power.

I see you are using Vista so
Goto Control Panel-> Power Options->Change Plan Settings(for selected plan)->Change Advanced Power Settings->Expand Hard Disk->Expand Turn Off Hard Disk After-> Choose a desired Setting.
 
nitrobass24 said:
No your computer is just spinning the disk down(turning off) to conserver power.

I see you are using Vista so
Goto Control Panel-> Power Options->Change Plan Settings(for selected plan)->Change Advanced Power Settings->Expand Hard Disk->Expand Turn Off Hard Disk After-> Choose a desired Setting.
Click to expand...

Is there anything wrong with setting it to "Never"?
 
Azureth said:
Is there anything wrong with setting it to "Never"?
Click to expand...

Nope, I keep my drives running like this always and have never had a problem. Yeah people might argue that I am not being green but washing one less load of clothes will save 10x the amount of energy one of these drives will need in a month. The other downside to it is it probably will shorten the life of the drive but who keeps a drive for longer than 5 years anyways? :)
 
Never = 10W idle = $13/year if running 24/7

Most people don't realize that a 100W bulb left on 24/7 for a year @ $0.15/kWHr = $131/year in costs. This is what it costs to idle most desktop computers. Scary...isn't it.
 
My "Turn off disk after" setting is already set to Never. I thought it might be a power saver thing but I always make a point to set all my Windows settings to have everything running 24/7.
 
Maybe it is just me but I have had issues with Windows Vista and its power saving options. It wouldn't stop putting my monitor to sleep every 10min even though I had it set for 2 hours.

Try booting with a Linux live CD and go into its power management system and turn the HDD to never and see if it does it there, if it does still do it, check in your motherboards BIOS to see if that is turning it off.


Trepidati0n said:
Never = 10W idle = $13/year if running 24/7

Most people don't realize that a 100W bulb left on 24/7 for a year @ $0.15/kWHr = $131/year in costs. This is what it costs to idle most desktop computers. Scary...isn't it.
Click to expand...

Yes but buying energy efficient bulbs that use 1/4 of the power would fix that :).

I am personally sick of everyone screaming about "green", in my opinion is it just a flavor of the month people have just grabbed onto and won't let go.

Wanna save some money? Use some common sense with the things you are doing. Turn the A/C up to 74 instead to 70. Turn the freezer up a few degrees, and turn the fridge up a few degrees 37-40 instead of 34 (F). Instead of going to town every time you need the smallest thing do it all at once. When you try on a shirt and you decide on not wearing it, put it back into the clean dresser NOT in the dirty clothes to go into the wash. Or when you do wear the shirt and it isn't dirty wear it around the house again so you don't dirty up more clean clothes.

I've got friends the rave about going green and being energy efficient etc. but they are the most wasteful people I know.

I am sorry but that old lady burning a light bulb for her poor cat 24/7 that goes to the store once a week for stuff is going to save more energy and generate less pollution than the 21-24 y/o that goes to the store every other day to "pick something up" that probably could have waited anyways.
 
Trepidati0n said:
Never = 10W idle = $13/year if running 24/7

Most people don't realize that a 100W bulb left on 24/7 for a year @ $0.15/kWHr = $131/year in costs. This is what it costs to idle most desktop computers. Scary...isn't it.
Click to expand...

which is why almost no one uses 100w incandescent bulbs anymore, and why people shut their machies down when they dont use them for long periods. but really. $10 or so a month isnt all that bad. so it costs him a DOLLAR a month to keep his drives from spinning down....assuming its on 24/7. it costs more to keep your beer cold. it costs more to take a shit over a year. ever price toilet paper??? sorry but you have to take into consideration that is takes money to use electricity.everyone pays. the ones that dont wanna pay so much will conserve and cut back.

producing electricity can be done with zero or very little impact to the enviroment. its the same with cars etc... its the companies and govts making a shitload of money that dont want it to change. its fossil fuels that cause the damage.
 
This is not a global warming thread
Topic is Disk Spindown in Vista
 
I know and that was answered sufficiently
It was just getting off topic with people talking about old lady running light bulbs etc

Just righting the ship a bit.
 
nitrobass24 said:
I know and that was answered sufficiently
It was just getting off topic with people talking about old lady running light bulbs etc

Just righting the ship a bit.
Click to expand...


If I remember correctly you were the one that first mentioned global warming :).
 
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