Second HDD stops responding after 10+ minutes of not using.

[Decèdere]

Kind of a weird little problem that's been bothering me for some time. I have a second hard drive for storage, and it works just fine, except when I stop using it for a while and then try to access it again it doesn't respond for like 30-60 seconds. I feel like this is Windows 10 mounting and unmounting it automatically behind the scenes, or something. Anyone have a clue what's going on with this? This never happens on other OSs except Win10. Is there like some option to mount the drive once when Windows starts?

[Pamatronic]

This isn´t unique to Win 10. Win 7 does this as well. Not sure how it works in 10, but in 7 you can disable this behavior via the Power Options. "Time until hard drive deactivation..." something...

[Kitty]

Should be able to find it with..

 

Windows key / Start  ->  Type "Edit Power Plan" - you can stop typing and click once Windows guesses correctly what you're trying to find, or you can also navigate to this via control panel if you're more comfortable doing that.

 

On that 'page' click "Change Advanced Power Settings", which will bring up a little scroll-window with lots of options.  Somewhere in the list (mine is the first one listed) you'll see "Hard Disk" which is an expandable item (like a folder).  Expand sub-options a couple times and you'll get:

Hard Disk

   Turn off hard disk after

      Setting (Minutes): xxx

 

Make that zero and see if it fixes your issue.  Obviously Apply, OK, OK blah blah until you get rid of any/all windows, prompts etc, being sure to "Save Changes" to the currently selected power plan when you have that opportunity.

 

All that said, an HDD that takes an unreasonable amount of time to wake up (say, much over about 15 seconds) may be showing its age.  I'd say 30+ is time to keep a close eye on it (run error checking a bit more often, watch for it to do anything 'weird', etc) as it MAY be an indication it's going to have issues.  I mean, all HDDs will (in theory and by the math anyways) eventually fail.  But it also may be nothing.  That drive may just be 'moody' for lack of better term.  I had an old Seagate once upon a time that was slow to wake like that too from the day it was shiny and new, while its 'sister' never had the same issue.  *shrug*

 

Also, in terms of wear and tear, blah blah, there's really no good evidence that using 'sleep' or power down modes actually do anything at all to prolong a drive's life in the first place, since when you do, they then have to do a full spin-up when you wake them back up, and that's when they use the most power, generate more heat, and take more physical stress than any other time, so it's like a lightbulb really.  In theory, having it "off" more WOULD prolong its life, if it weren't for the necessary surges that then have to happen to turn the damn thing back ON again. 

[fiewiel]

energy options - enhanced energy options - hd shutdown in X minutes (try to change that, not sure how its called in english)

else

 

win10: Hello! Need to transfer some  bytes!

HD: ZZZZZzzzzzZZ

win10: H...Hello?

HD: zzzzzz... no thanks dont like the colorzzzzzz

win10: HEY!

HD: What?! Wher... Yes! Immediately! Gimme the package!

win10: Oookey... Here they are.

HD: Thanks. Anything else?

win10: Not right away, maybe in some time. Stay alert.

HD: Sure thing! Waiting for more!

<20 minutes later>

HD: Man thats boring. Not even the index.x...zzzzzZZZZ

 

Feels like an eternity but its often just 15-30 sec depending on hardware age plus other factors.

[Decèdere]

Thanks guys! I didn't get a notification for replies so I forgot about this topic. I found that option and set it to 0 and hopefully this doesn't have any adverse effects down the line. We'll see. And yeah I think I really exaggerated the time it takes to wake up, it's more like 15 seconds or so, not 30-60 seconds lol. It just feels that way sometimes.

[Grey Cloud]

On 1/19/2021 at 4:02 PM, Seelenlos said:

except when I stop using it for a while

It could also depend on how long a 'while' is. ?

[landess]

On 1/19/2021 at 11:02 AM, Seelenlos said:

Windows 10 mounting and unmounting it automatically behind the scenes

 

Just to clarify: An unmounted drive will not have a letter assigned to it, therefore would not show up in the 'This PC' window.

 

I have an external SSD set as F:    If I insert another external drive into a USB, it will bump the SSD to drive G:   When I unplug the 'added' drive, the SSD remains at G:  which messes up all the shortcuts and references to it. I learned to just shut off power to the SSD before plugging in any other external drives - seems to solve the issue. I'm pretty sure this is based on USB port hierarchy, but no matter - The way I chose works fine.

[Decèdere]

I'm used to Linux and it doesn't do this. I set up partitions to mount on boot and never have to worry about them becoming unresponsive after 10 minutes. That's why I thought maybe it was a mount/unmount thing(although even that's pretty much instant in Linux). I don't remember Windows 8 doing it either, but I do have a pretty shit memory.