(Windows) Stopping internal HDDs from unnecessarily spinning up

[mikeymikec]

Like many people I have a boot SSD and a HDD which I use for storing personal data on (the kind of data where I/O performance makes little difference in loading said data).

Like many people I notice the telltale sound of the HDD spinning up, and it often happens when I'm doing something that does not conceivably require access to that drive, like when I've been playing a game for half an hour that is installed on the SSD.

While there are a few things one can do to stop an internal drive from unnecessarily spinning up, such as not installing apps on it or storing data that one regularly wants to access, ensuring that the drive isn't being indexed by Windows, or simply disabling the powering down of HDDs due to an idle timer, it seems to me that both Windows and some software engages in practices that aren't conducive to stopping a problem like this without a (probably) significant compromise.

I'm posting this thread because I wonder whether anyone here has made any significant strides in curbing or stopping this problem, but my overall impression is that it is extremely difficult to stop if one wishes to store any kind of data on that drive with a wish to access it from time to time. My guess is that between Windows keeping a list of recently opened files (and it wouldn't surprise me if this list was queried periodically), and let's say you have an app that has recently opened a file on said drive and so lists the file and path in its recently opened files list, it doesn't matter that the user is not requesting that file right now, but the app in question or OS decides that it ought to query the path for some reason.

I wonder whether disabling indexing altogether as well as any logging of saved files/paths would help reduce the problem significantly, but certainly the latter would constitute a compromise too far, at least for me. Then there's the possibility that third party apps have their own programming to remember certain things, like for example Thunderbird records the last location that a file attachment was copied from in its prefs.js settings file.

I suppose another possibility would be to only buy HDDs that are so quiet that the sound of them spinning up is virtually inaudible, however in a system with an SSD in, that's a pretty low bar to aim for, and likely at the cost of the HDD's performance.

 

[Billb2]

Choices:
Under Power Management set the drive to never spin down.
Use Microsoft's Process Explorer to see what process is accessing the drive and kill that process permanently. It's likely that it's the Page File (move it to the SSD) or some software checking for updates/license verification.

But, like you say, it's hard to do.

 

[JackMDS]

You probably can reduce it by getting the drive into the Security Exclusion list.

It will reduce Drive access, but will also reduce security.

That said, if their is No real problem as a result of the access it seems to me a None issue.

Stripping Ones car of it paint and covering it with Vinyl Decals save much more than all the Imaginary computers' issues.

 

[PliotronX]

I've looked into individual parking management and apparently its an all or nothing kind of thing so I'm afraid setting them to never power off is the first option as Billb2 suggested. Believe it or not for a lot of mechanical drives, keeping them spinning rather than constantly powering up is easier on their mechanical bits and depending on the frequency of spinups it would consume more power than just leaving them running.

 

[lxskllr]

I've looked into individual parking management and apparently its an all or nothing kind of thing so I'm afraid setting them to never power off is the first option as Billb2 suggested. Believe it or not for a lot of mechanical drives, keeping them spinning rather than constantly powering up is easier on their mechanical bits and depending on the frequency of spinups it would consume more power than just leaving them running.

For normal use I agree, but it sounds like the op could go hours without needing the drive at all. If that's the case, I suspect stopping and starting the drive would be better for longevity and power savings.

 

[deustroop]

You probably can reduce it by getting the drive into the Security Exclusion list.

It will reduce Drive access, but will also reduce security.

That said, if their is No real problem as a result of the access it seems to me a None issue.

Stripping Ones car of it paint and covering it with Vinyl Decals save much more than all the Imaginary computers' issues.

I haven't read such a poorly worded nor thoughtless post in a long time.Truly pathetic.

 

[PliotronX]

For normal use I agree, but it sounds like the op could go hours without needing the drive at all. If that's the case, I suspect stopping and starting the drive would be better for longevity and power savings.

True! As a general data drive and seldom being used, it does sound like it neednt be spun up. Hopefully in one of the build updates of windows 10 or SATA controllers there will finally be a way to manage drive settings individually because this is a typical scenario in today's systems and the management sorely lacking.

I haven't read such a poorly worded nor thoughtless post in a long time.Truly pathetic.

No he does have a point. Security would not be much compromised because malware executes from the boot drive 99% of the time so periodic malware scans are needless on extended data drives.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I haven't read such a poorly worded nor thoughtless post in a long time.Truly pathetic.

JackMDS's posts are often subtle, and require careful reflection to absorb and understand.

Edit: And try not to be super-critical of how some people post. This isn't Shakespeare we're writing here.

 

[balloonshark]

My Windows 8 rigs starting doing this after the telemetry updates installed. A few times a day I started noticing my data HDD spinning up and a couple of different processes calling home to Singapore in my firewall. One of the IPs was 111.221.29.254. The processes were vortex and settings svchost.exes. After I uninstalled the updates everything went back to normal.

 

[Elixer]

Unless you are on battery, I really don't think HDs should ever spin down.
It causes much more wear & tear on them vs being always on.

There are some windows services that run at a scheduled time, so those can wake up HDs as well. Check Task Scheduler to see what is going on.