Win 7, Selective HDD Control

21stHermit

Senior member
Dec 16, 2003
927
1
81
Can I selectively control different hard drives by drive letter?

What I would like is a SSD as C: for a boot drive, then a large mechanical HDD which would be commanded off unless a file was requested, it would then have to spin up before reading/writing the file. Is this possible?

Thanks
 

MrChad

Lifer
Aug 22, 2001
13,507
3
81
Windows XP, Vista and 7 all have power options to turn off hard drives when idle.
 

JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
29,543
421
126
Similar to Vista, Win 7 has advance Power Options that can be tuned.

power-saving3.jpg


.
 
Last edited:

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
27,370
239
106
You can also do this with a hardware solution by using mobile racks. SATA ones can be hot-switched on and off. And, you can use external drives that can be physically turned on and off.
 

21stHermit

Senior member
Dec 16, 2003
927
1
81
Similar to Vista, Win 7 has advance Power Options that can be tuned.

power-saving3.jpg
I found the same control in Win XP, it appears identical to the above screen shot. Neither allows selective control by drive letter. The above control is a global command treating all HDD's the same.

I was hoping for selective control.

Thanks for the replies.
 

Swampster

Senior member
Mar 17, 2000
349
0
0
Hermit,

Give Jack's suggestion a try. Remember, your SSD drive is, for all practical purposes, in the OFF position when you are not commanding it to access a file, so this setting should serve your purpose.