Switch off second HDD?

[CSULB71]

I have two hard drives on my PC, and I use the second one just for data storage and video capture, so for about 90% of the time it's not in use. To prolong the drive motor's life, I was thinking about putting a toggle switch in the power wire(s) from the PSU to the drive's Molex plug (in just the 12 volt, just the 5 volt, or both wires?) so I could keep the second hard drive turned off until I needed to access it. Will that work without screwing something up? I'm pretty sure I'd need to reboot to get access to it, but that's OK. I don't want to experiment with this without asking the question first.
Thanks.

[oldfolk999]

why don't you buy an external usb drive enclosure. With that, you plug the drive in only when you need to use it, otherwise it sits and no juice no nothing. Also you don't have to mess with slicing the power supply cables.

[jagabo]

Or use a removable drive bay.

http://www.provantage.com/startech-drw110satbk~7STRP08Q.htm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817123102

[piano632]

Or, you can just buy one of these external cables for $10:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Item_DealMac.cfm?ID=9011&Item=OWCUSB2PATA

[MOVIEGEEK]

Or, you can just buy one of these external cables for $10:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Item_DealMac.cfm?ID=9011&Item=OWCUSB2PATA

Wow I've never seen one of those and the price is right.
OP:I recommend using an external case or this external cable because USB is hot swappable.SATA can be used in a removable drive bay but not IDE.

[redwudz]

Not really a good idea to power off a system drive. If it were transferring data, it could corrupt the drive.

Just my opinion but it seems that most drive wear comes from turning off and on at boot. The next cause of wear seems to be from excessive defragging or antivirus checks. If your drive isn't being accessed, it's not really doing anything. It may even spin down and be basically 'off' without any outside help.

From a forum page:

MTBF is Mean Time Between Failure and is typically expressed in hours. The hours are
calculated by dividing the total number of failures into the total number of operating
hours observed. For Western Digital, MTBF represents the average number of hours a
field population of drives will work before a failure occurs.

The Western Digital MTBF specification is 300,000 hours. If a disk drive is operated for
24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would take an average of 34 years before this disk
drive will fail.

http://forum.pcmech.com/archive/index.php/t-6939.html

I don't necessarily believe much of that, but most hard drives are rated to last quite a few years, even when on 24/7. I would find other things to worry about.

[jagabo]

MTBF is Mean Time Between Failure and is typically expressed in hours. The hours are calculated by dividing the total number of failures into the total number of operating hours observed. For Western Digital, MTBF represents the average number of hours a field population of drives will work before a failure occurs.

The Western Digital MTBF specification is 300,000 hours. If a disk drive is operated for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would take an average of 34 years before this disk drive will fail.

That's not at all what MTBF means. MTBF is a theoretical value which includes swapping the drive with a new one after its "service life" has expired. Service life may be as little as a year or two. So, if you replace the drive with a new one exactly like it each time the its service life expires, you can expect, on average, the quoted MTBF.

http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/qual/specMTBF.html

MTBF also includes the duty cycle. That might be as little as 8 hours a day. And a limited amount of read/write activity.

MTBF excludes things the manufacturer doesn't want to include -- like infant mortality and manufacturing defects. If a bad batch of capacitors causes all the drives to start failing, that's not accounted for in MTBF.

So, if you use your drive only within the stated duty cycle limits, replace it every time the service life is over, and there are no manufacturing or component defects, you can expect the rated MTBF.

And of course, your drive might be the one that fails after one hour, not 300,000 hour mean, or the 600,000 hour outlier.

[CSULB71]

Thanks for all the suggestions -- I was just thinking of a simple way to keep the drive motor from needlessly spinning all the time. Since I have an IDE drive, that external USB cable adaptor might be my best bet.

[piano632]

Of course, the external USB-to-IDE cable is intended for temporary use. I wouldn't recommend it for permanent usage, since it offers no bump protection for your delicate hard drive. You can use an external enclosure for something more permanent. NewEgg and other places have lots of enclosures to choose from depending on your needs.

http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=92&name=External-Enclosures

[jagabo]

SATA can be used in a removable drive bay but not IDE.

You can use an IDE drive in a removable drive tray. It's just not hot swappable. You have to shut the computer down before swapping.

[MOVIEGEEK]

SATA can be used in a removable drive bay but not IDE.

You can use an IDE drive in a removable drive tray. It's just not hot swappable. You have to shut the computer down before swapping.

That's what I meant.

[jagabo]

With Windows, the simple way of keeping the drive from spinning all the time is to use Power Options and enable the "Turn off hard disks" option.

[pfh]

I've never had good success with Windows power options. Seems it puts the drive to sleep too good and requires reboot to wake it up half the time anyways. External usb enclosures are a good way to make use of any spare IDE drive one might have and also save on power draw from the PSU after that brand new power hog GPU you just installed! (or were thinking of installing)

[jagabo]

I've never had good success with Windows power options. Seems it puts the drive to sleep too good and requires reboot to wake it up half the time anyways.

I've never had that problem but it's annoying when you have to wait 15 seconds for a drive your not going to use to spin up when a file dialog opens to My Computer.

[normcar]

I use the Power Options and enable the "Turn off hard disks" option on both of my computers which have 15 harddrives between them. I did it to mimimize heat. I've had 0 problems, but it is sometimes annoying waiting for a drive to spin up.

[Lakeray]

"You can use an IDE drive in a removable drive tray. It's just not hot swappable. You have to shut the computer down before swapping."

Vi Power is one company that makes Hot Swappable internal IDE drive bays. Their reasonably priced ( Less than $30, + $25 for software.) and work well. I've been using the same bay and drive racks for 5 years now with no problems. It's a great way to use some of those old 20-100 GB hard disks. Just make sure you get the Hot Swappable unit. VP-10LSFU-133



http://www.vipowershop.com/P_MobileRACK.php?id=63


Ray

[jagabo]

Vi Power is one company that makes Hot Swappable internal IDE drive bays.

The hot swappable ones use IDE drives but they hook up to the computer via USB or SATA.

[Lakeray]

quote]
The hot swappable ones use IDE drives but they hook up to the computer via USB or SATA.[/quote

Sorry, but some of the ViPower models (like the one I suggested), which are hot swappable, hook up to the IDE cable from the MB, just like a IDE HD. I got mine before SATA even came out.

Ray

[jagabo]

I didn't see anything about being hot swappable in the link you posted.

Of course, if you're using a IDE RAID or other IDE controller that supports hot swapping, any IDE drive can be hot swappable.

[ZAPPER]

@ OP

I see your logic, but I don't really see the value added. I would say that the best bang for the buck would be to buy an external drive and back up the two drives that you have and have an additional drive for video capture if you filled your second internal drive.


I think that the flawed thinking is trying to prevent a drive failure. All drives will fail eventually. So having backups makes having a failure an unimportant event. (this from a guy that has a six or seven year old machine with the original drive and has never backed up a thing in his life)

The adptor cable looks cool though