Turn off single hard drive?

[n0sferatu]

Hi all,

I am running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. I have two hard drives hooked up. One of them I'm using for backups and the other is for general use. I know in the power management settings that you can turn off hard disks after X number of minutes. However, I am looking to only turn off one of the hard disks after X number of minutes; I would like the other hard disk to stay running 24/7 when the computer is on. This way I can cut down on the power used as well as the noise. Is this possible in Windows?

Thanks in advance.

 

[eth00]

I *believe* it will spin down the one if it is not in use after the X number of minutes. I have XP 32bit and when I go to access another drive it always has to spin it up even if my main drive is already working.

Also for a backup drive you may even consider one of those hotswap bays, what happens when something fries your computer and everything plugged into it?

 

[spectrumbx]

Yeah, it will work.

I have 7 drives and 6 of them get shut off after 30min saving me a nice 50-55watts/h.
The one that's always on is the OS drives.
There are just too many processes for it to be idle for at least 30min.

To get the OS drive to power down, you have to greatly reduce the idle count down.
This is bad though as you will have a constant power up and power down since the OS drive is frequently accessed by various processes.