How Can I Make My External HDD Go to Sleep?

[DrumsXO]

My external HDD doesn't go into sleep mode. So long as my machine is on, so is the external HDD. It's always spinning and the activity LED is always on/blinking as it should be when it's on.

Is there a way for me to manually put it to sleep? I don't want to unplug it from the PC because I use it with Nova Backup for daily backups. But having it on all the time isn't needed, and probablly reduces its lifespan.

Thanks!

 

[C1]

Probably not.

If you do not want the drive to spin given that it has not been accessed for awhile, then you may have to move it to another type enclosure that provides for this.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

May depend on how you use it. I draw the line on external drives: they are for either backup, or archive. There's a film collection I'd stored on some USB drives I had. If I wanted to play something, I turned it on. Then, I'd dismount "Safe remove" the drive, and turn it off.

I have a hotswap bay backup drive for my server. Sometimes, I leave it running in there for a week. Today, I dismounted it. But there's a way to configure some sort of "sync-center" update for such a drive. Or, instead of updating it all the time, I could have several such drives to back up that data in a round-robin sequence.

But I'm thinking that the OP has some arrangement with the external drive that requires an ongoing connection to it, or he wants it to sleep while leaving the system "alive." If it sleeps when the computer sleeps, that's something else. I'd need to refresh my mind on this. But it should be possible to configure the Device Manager node for it so that it can sleep. You can do that for everything else -- Ethernet controllers, for instance. Maybe not "everything."

I'm even wondering if you could do it through Ctrl-Pnl-> Power-options-> Advanced. Damn! I'm SURE you can configure USB devices to do that.

anyone else?

 

[DrumsXO]

Probably not.

If you do not want the drive to spin given that it has not been accessed for awhile, then you may have to move it to another type enclosure that provides for this.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean...

Are you saying that there are different kinds of enclosures for external drives that come with a sleep button of some kind?

May depend on how you use it. I draw the line on external drives: they are for either backup, or archive. There's a film collection I'd stored on some USB drives I had. If I wanted to play something, I turned it on. Then, I'd dismount "Safe remove" the drive, and turn it off.

I have a hotswap bay backup drive for my server. Sometimes, I leave it running in there for a week. Today, I dismounted it. But there's a way to configure some sort of "sync-center" update for such a drive. Or, instead of updating it all the time, I could have several such drives to back up that data in a round-robin sequence.

But I'm thinking that the OP has some arrangement with the external drive that requires an ongoing connection to it, or he wants it to sleep while leaving the system "alive." If it sleeps when the computer sleeps, that's something else. I'd need to refresh my mind on this. But it should be possible to configure the Device Manager node for it so that it can sleep. You can do that for everything else -- Ethernet controllers, for instance. Maybe not "everything."

I'm even wondering if you could do it through Ctrl-Pnl-> Power-options-> Advanced. Damn! I'm SURE you can configure USB devices to do that.

anyone else?

The only thing I use this particular drive for is backing up my two internal drives; an SSD and an HDD. I use the Nova Backup software to do so, programming a daily schedule that backs up any new files, or files that have been changed since the previous backup. It's quite handy!

I just tested a theory. When I put the PC to sleep, the drive goes to sleep too. When I wake the PC, the drive stays asleep until I access it through Windows Explorer. This could be by going to My Computer > Seagate 2TB External HDD (G or by launching Nova Backup.

Theoretically, whenever I want the drive to sleep, I could just put the PC to sleep and wake it right back up again. But, I'd rather not have to sleep my PC every time I want to sleep the drive, you know?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean...

Are you saying that there are different kinds of enclosures for external drives that come with a sleep button of some kind?



The only thing I use this particular drive for is backing up my two internal drives; an SSD and an HDD. I use the Nova Backup software to do so, programming a daily schedule that backs up any new files, or files that have been changed since the previous backup. It's quite handy!

I just tested a theory. When I put the PC to sleep, the drive goes to sleep too. When I wake the PC, the drive stays asleep until I access it through Windows Explorer. This could be by going to My Computer > Seagate 2TB External HDD (G or by launching Nova Backup.

Theoretically, whenever I want the drive to sleep, I could just put the PC to sleep and wake it right back up again. But, I'd rather not have to sleep my PC every time I want to sleep the drive, you know?

Understood.

This is the difficulty I have with certain critical file backups. I have movies stored on the server, and they aren't duplicated. Here in the forums, some of us distinguish between "backups" and "redundancy." So if I store my critical files online with my server and they're "duplicated," the duplicated files are technically not backups. so at the moment, I've implemented a backup solution that is not automatic, but manual -- done every few days to a week.

If I leave the backup hotswap disk running all the time, I could sync the duplicated "important" files to that disk. It becomes a trade-off between "unnecessary" power consumption and even wear on the backup disk, and less-incremental, less-automated backups.

I'm vaguely familiar with the Nova Backup software. If I were using an imaging backup solution, I'd be using Acronis True Image 2014. It's all installed -- I just have to use it. And I can use it manually -- at will, or I can schedule the operations. If I schedule the operations, I have to leave the target disk running all the time.

The WHS system deploys Stablebit Drive-Pool, and I could have a NAS device configured as another drive-pool that I could mount and dismount at will -- in which case, once it's been active for whatever purposes, I can turn it off. But it's the same problem again: I cannot use it for automated operations unless it stays on all the time.

Ideally, you'd want the operating system to wake the external drive or NAS when it needs to, and then put it asleep again. Whether that can be done or how it can be done, I haven't figured out.

 

[HOSED]

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/archive/2011/05/11/demystifying-usb-selective-suspend.aspx
I had read a while back that selective suspend can cause issues so I would test it with your setup. I would agree with C1, if Selective suspend does not solve this get an enclosure with an on off switch. Just curious, what enclosure do you have now?

 

[corkyg]

My solution is very similar to BonzaiDuck. I have 4 external HDDs that serve as backup for data on 2 computers. I have them connected to a power box with switches, and I only turn them on when I want to use them. It's old school, but simple and really foolproof for me. Two of them are eSATA and two are SATA. They are all in Vantec cases.

 

[Auric]

Assuming OS power options are set to turn off drives, and no background tasks are accessing it, then check the drive's own setting with the manufacturer's (Seagate Dashboard?) or third-party tools.

That's preferable to hotswap/devcon disable because it will still be able to spinup on demand (of course same goes for physically switching off).

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You know, I'm still using some IDE-to-USB cases of which I'd converted half or about three to eSATA. I don't think those rigs can "go to sleep." But like I said, I toggle them on when I need one, and toggle them off when I'm finished. I'm guessing the newer external cases and drives will actually "sleep." I wouldn't know firsthand.