power switch for internal hard drive

[oakleaf00]

Hi all,

I'm starting to do some video editing and my main hard drive is getting full. I have a hard drive sitting around that I'm now wanting to use. It wasn't in my rig before because I didn't need it and I didn't want the extra heat/noise source in my box.

Now, I'd like to put my rarely used files on the second hard drive (movies, recorded TV, etc.) but I don't need the hard drive on all the time. Is there a way I can install/hook-up the hard drive (internally), but have a switch that I can flip whenever I want the drive on? Kind of like they do with cathode tubes and other lighting? I'm worried about damaging the drive from turning it on and off when the system's up.

My fallback would be to get an external enclosure and use it as an external drive, but since I already have one of those and I don't need the portability on this one, I'd rather not...

Any comments? Thanks in advance!

 

[biostud]

you can unplug the powerconnector, but I doubt it's a good idea to do while the computer is on.

 

[Matthias99]

Normal IDE drives aren't hot-swappable or hot-pluggable. While flipping it on and off probably won't *damage* anything, it also probably won't work the way you want it to. If you got a PCI IDE controller that supported hot-swap, you could do this, though. Of course, at that point you might as well just get an external enclosure...

 

[oakleaf00]

I figured as much. Oh well... Thanks for your help!

 

[TerryMathews]

This can be done. Your IDE controller needs to support hot-swap (Onboard doesn't 99% of the time, a lot of Promise controllers do though), and you need to tell Windows that the volume in question is removable.

Disabling write caching would be a good thing if you want to be able to switch it off without right-clicking on the drive in My Computer and hitting Eject.

 

[EULA]

Or, windows has an option to shut off the hard drives when they're not used in X minutes. Simply do that, and when you go to access it again, it will spin up...

 

[grrl]

Originally posted by: EULA
Or, windows has an option to shut off the hard drives when they're not used in X minutes. Simply do that, and when you go to access it again, it will spin up...

That's what I've done with my second drive. It doesn't affect my main drive because I'm normally using it.