Setting Hard Drives to Power Down

I have three internal hard drives: one for the OS and various programs, one for general storage, and one just for recording audio. Should I set the power management option in Windows to power down the latter of the three when it's not being used?

I'm not sure I trust Windoze with that kind of responsibility, and from what I can tell from SpeedFan, the two extra drives don't seem to be producing enough heat to make too big a difference. Is there any advantage to only powering a drive when it's in use?

As always, thanks in advance for any and all advice.


TA

They say the less you turn your computer on and off the longer the HD will last.

For exp, some HD's run about 5000 starts on a PC. so in that if you restart ur pc 10 times in 275 days then thats a good thing.. The drive should last forever..

As for shutting it down, I wouldnt in case you decide to move something spur of the moment or something. Some old PC's have an issue with big Hds tho.. so it depends on what you feel like doing.

For the record I used to run 3 drives on a pc. I run 2 drives now.. just like you.. OS and files..

[edit on 1/8/2010 by ThichHeaded]

reply to post by ThichHeaded


Cool, thanks for the advice. You've got a point about possibly needing to rearrange things on the spur of the moment. Thanks again for the reply and insight.


TA

I have 2, a nice quiet 80GB and a noisy 1TB... I have the operating system installed on the 80 and the TB one is for storage - the only reason I set the TB to power down is simply the noise... I really doubt heat would be a factor for a HDD, the processor is the main source of heat.

So along with the AMD cool 'n' quiet my machine runs pretty quiet for something like browsing the web, as soon as anything more intensive happens it can get pretty noisy and I really start to notice it - especially when the cool'n'queit keeps pulsing between 2 settings, that really bugs me!

reply to post by Now_Then

especially when the cool'n'queit keeps pulsing between 2 settings, that really bugs me!

:bnghd:

Lousy noisy hard drives!

Thanks for the reply and insight, Now_Then.

Still considering it, and all available info helps.


TA