Vista - Help with Hard Drive Stand By / Turn Off / Spin Down

Hi, I am looking for a way to force an external hard drive into stand by mode / turn off / spin down. Any help would be appreciated!

As of right now the only way I can get the external drive to spin down is to let it reach the time set to turn off the hard drive (via Vista Power Options) or to turn off the computer.
I can tell when the external drive is spun down since the vibrations stop. Also the fan does not cause the vibrations as when it is spun down the air still flows.

System specifications:
OS: Vista x64 Ultimate
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
(6 orange SATA ports are supported by the south bridge chip, Intel ICH10R | 2 purple SATA ports are supported by the Gigabyte SATA2 chip. I am not sure of the primary purpose of the 2 purple ports.)
External hard drive enclosure: Antec MX-1
External hard drive: WD 1TB Black (WD1001FALS)

1) I originally hard the SATA mode set to IDE, enabled SATA Port0-3 Native Mode and the drivers were from Vista/whatever the intel_chipset_9.1.0.1012 provided.
On this motherboard there is no "safely remove" function, similar/exactly like what you normally see with a USB device.
Because of this I opted to use HotSwap!. Unfortunately HotSwap! did not spin down the drive after safely hot swapping/removing the hard drive.

2) I changed the SATA mode to AHCI while keeping all other bios options the same. Because I enabled AHCI it is best to use the Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager 8.8.0.1009 WHQL (latest version).
Using this method I could finally get the drive recognized upon powering up the external. (When I used the IDE mode I had to scan for hardware changes.) However the option to "safely remove" the device still does not show and HotSwap! still does not spin down the drive.

3) I plugged the external drive SATA cable in to the Gigabyte SATA2 chip supported connectors (purple).
The "safely remove" hardware does show! But the hard drive still does not spin down when I safely remove it or when I use HotSwap!
I believe it also reduces the drive burst performance, but I cannot be sure since HD Tune show a decrease to 85 MB/sec burst rate while HD Tach shows an ungodly 2000+ MB number (which has to be wrong).
(The burst rate is 135 MB/sec in HD Tune when the external is plugged into the ICH10R ports.)

For all 3 methods the drive does not spin down when I unplug the eSATA cable before/after hot swapping/safely removing.

I could be wrong but:
I am not aware of any external hard drive case you can buy that will power
down according to the power management settings in the OS.
I have seen this advertised as a feature of some newer external hard drive
packages, e.g. Western Digital, but the box says the feature is only
available via USB2 or Firewire connections and not ESATA.
Otherwise you must relieve the pressure on your hindquarters and physically
flip a switch to turn the darn thing off: unbelievable, huh?

You have two sata controlers, hence different coloured sata ports.

If you stop a device via safely remove, it will continue to be powered
untill you remove any power connection, or switch it off.
As far as I'm aware any hotswap device needs to be installed in a hotswap
enabled enclosure

"trikat" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:25cf481014d4ee472af47f1c81af0d3c@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

I am looking to force the ext HD to spin down, not to shut it off.
I know this is possible since it does spin down when it reaches the time I set under "turn off hard disk after" and also when I turn off the computer.
The "turn off hard disk after" can be found here in Vista x64: power options -> change advanced power settings -> Hard disk.

[Reply to DL]
I spoke to the author of HotSwap! and he has not heard of a similar issue. I even did a fresh install of Vista x64 about a week ago so it shouldn't be any software complications that may arise from a cluttered OS.
With a typical hotswap device you can "pull" it out while the hard drive is still running, but I am trying to find a way to just get the hard drive to spin down.
I chose HotSwap! since it seems to be a lot safer than to just turn off the power to the ext HD and it also has a spin down option (which doesn't work for me).


If anybody knows of a way to force a hard drive to spin down please do let me know! Thanks!

You can disable the drive if you want to.

Click Start, Right click Computer, select Manage,
Select Device Manager, Right click External USB device,
Select disable.
You can Enable it when you need it.

Hope this helps,
Jerry

"trikat" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:25cf481014d4ee472af47f1c81af0d3c@xxxxxx-gateway.com...<SNIP>

I used to use that method before I found HotSwap!, but that method does not spin down the ext HD.

I apologize for the slow reply.
I posted the thread on the Vista x64 forums in the section that is a
public usenet newsgroup that is mirrored and filtered.
I guess this section is also mirrored and filtered since my post ended
up here. I just happened to see my post was mirrored at techarena when I
did a google search so I just signed up to techarena moments ago.

Anyways the Antec enclosure is a consumer based external hard drive
enclosure.
It does not have an auto-on/off feature. I do not believe it came with
any software, but I am currently using it without any software. Just
basically plug and play via eSATA.
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NDc=

It should be extremely similar to most consumer based external
enclosures that do not have the auto-on/off feature.


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trikat
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