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I was trying to find a utility that would allow me to change my HD spin down time settings depending on the time of day. So that I don’t have to listen to them when I’m sleeping. Didn’t find anthing. But I did notice that many people are having trouble finding how to set the HD spin down time or sleep time. So I’ll offer my 2 pence.

Go to START >  Control Panel > Power Options > Power Schemes tab

There you can set the Hard Drive and Monitor turn off time, or spin down time if you will.

This will slow down file access and opening ‘My Computer’ if the drive you’re accessing has spun down. I only use this to quiet things down.  Would like to be able to have setting for each drive as I prefer to keep my drives running at all times (except the noisy ones).  Unless you’ve got a drive that gets hot, like the old ones liked to, I think you’re better off leaving them on.  I’ve seen data loss and crashes from allowing them to shut off or spin down, but not on XP though as I recall.  This being a Windows problem more than a HD problem I believe.  But if you leave your computer running all the time (like I do) but don’t use it that much or aren’t having it running something that accesses the drives all the time (like I do) then you may get more life out of your hard drives by letting them rest.  Just realize there will be lag time when you need them, so be patient.

As always, backup everything important regularly.  This applies to everything, not just your computer data. Protect and backup your important paperwork, photos and videos.  It’s ‘your’ life, no one else is going to do it.

If this was helpful to you, please let me know by dropping a comment.

Cheers,
-Liam Sand

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