HDD - separate power on/off switch okay?

jolynsbass · Post by **jolynsbass** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:43 pm

Hi folks,
I currently have a wonderful Samsung 400GB drive that is nice and quiet. However, I also have an old WD 80 GB drive that I'd love to be able to use as a backup drive, but it's one of the noisy kind(ball bearing, whiny!). I'm too cheap to buy one of those external cases that change the drive into an external HDD setup. I'd be fine with having the noise of the WD drive on while I'm backing stuff up, but I simply could never bring myself to leave it on all the time. So, the big question is this:

Would there be any harm to either the drive or my OS, if I were to put a manual switch(case-mounted) between the power supply and the HDD, and use that to manually turn the drive on and off?

I've got enough data to backup that DVD's are pretty cumbersome to use for backup, and I can't really afford a new external HDD, and I've got this one laying around from my last computer. It's from 2003, so it's not too old - just too noisy!

Any thoughts on that?

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:12 pm

It sounds like you won't be using the HDD very often.
If you only turn it on or off while the computer is shut down it will work, of course.
Doing it while the computer is on is a bad idea.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:21 pm

Mats wrote:It sounds like you won't be using the HDD very often.
If you only turn it on or off while the computer is shut down it will work, of course.
Doing it while the computer is on is a bad idea.

if you're in that mindset, grab yourself an external enclosure or dock to stick the drive in.

as been said, while the computer is on, you don't want to be doing that.

jolynsbass · Post by **jolynsbass** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 7:41 pm

Mats wrote:It sounds like you won't be using the HDD very often.
If you only turn it on or off while the computer is shut down it will work, of course.
Doing it while the computer is on is a bad idea.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable. I'd only need it on every couple of weeks to run some kind of backup. Only, it'll mess up my drive letters, won't it? It'll probably put my 2 DVDRW drives back one letter... I hate that! Maybe one of those USB enclosures would be a better idea. Slower transfers, but less messing with my system overall...

Anyone recommend a good USB enclosure?

widowmaker · Post by **widowmaker** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:37 pm

Why not just power down the drive through software? If you're using windows xp you just need to go to control panel, power options. Under the power schemes tab there is an option to turn off hard disks after a certain selectable amount of idle time. As long as you don't install a running OS on your 80 gig then it will be able to shut off when it's not in use. Note that the drive will power up when you power on your computer, so if wear and tear is of concern, this may not be the best solution. I currently have a 250gig drive set to power down after 3 mins of inactivity and it's working well. Naturally it will power back on automatically when you try to access the drive.

sjoukew · Post by **sjoukew** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:35 am

I have seen problems arise from harddisks being attached to the IDE cable without power. Sometimes the controller or the other disk can 't cope with it and "strange things" do happen sometimes.
I would advise to buy an external housing or leave it as it is.
Powering up / down an IDE drive while the computer is running will definitely give a lot of problems because the technology isn't made for that.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 8:31 am

jolynsbass wrote:I'd only need it on every couple of weeks to run some kind of backup. Only, it'll mess up my drive letters, won't it? It'll probably put my 2 DVDRW drives back one letter... I hate that!

That's pretty much a matter of settings.
Start menu>Control Panel>Administrative tools>Computer management>Disk management:
Choose a Volume in the list, right click and choose Change drive letter...

Either change the letter for your backup disk(Z:\ for instance), or just give the optical drives a differnt letter.

SilentBen · Post by **SilentBen** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 9:10 am

FWIW - I have a client of mine that uses several external HDDs to accomplish mass storage, backup, etc.

I certainly recommend an external enclosure for your purpose, and follow the advice of MATS to assign static driver letters outside of your "usually used drive letter range." It is the best solution IMHO that just WORKS! I still recommend using the safely remove hardware feature with any mechanically removing media though! I never quick eject or just unplug a USB HDD, it is ungraceful!

I spent $10 for some of my external IDE->USB enclosures from RadioShack, on sale from $20. They work wonderful.

I also spent $15 + $5 for a removable hard drive caddy, but since it is not hot-swappable, I have to power down when I need to use it. It is also not portable, so it is an inconvenience to access the data on it. Also an IDE!

I strongly recommend against the switch idea. I think you run the risk of damaging your hard drive as sjoukew said. I'll also add in, you can pop your hard drive, power supply, rail, fuse, etc. if you're not careful! I had a technician "accidentally" plug in an old IDE drive into a Dell while it was running... the result was a Dell non-standard power supply ended up in smoke and the customer got a new computer and free service.

Is it worth taking those risks to save $20 on an enclosure? Backups are supposed to be reliable! It might cost more if you damage something. Just my opinion.

jolynsbass · Post by **jolynsbass** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:46 am

Well, I decided to simply install the drive normally (inside the computer case), and utilize the ability of Windows to shut the drive down.

Thankfully, the drive appeared AFTER all of my other drives, but I still changed it to drive Z:, so it wouldn't interfere with my USB thumb drives, etc.

I actually managed to get Windows to shut it down once after idling for a period of time, but I couldn't get it to do so again! It was imperative that I get it to shut down the drive, since it has that horrible ball bearing whine while running, so I kept looking for software solutions, and found a very handy utility:

revoSleep : It shuts down a hard disk, and also basically removes it from Windows's awareness, so that it won't be awakened accidentally while the OS is doing something routine. When you want the the HDD to wake up, just tell revoSleep to stop, and it wakes right back up. Perfect!

While this is great for a storage drive, it's not something you'd want to try on your OS HDD. That could be really bad, I imagine, if the OS suddenly doesn't know where it's files went!

Free and safe for the win! (didn't have to buy a USB enclosure, nor do anything risky with switches)

antifro · Post by **antifro** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 9:24 am

If I'm not mistaken, SATA hard drives are hot swappable. But it sounds like your 80gb is old and is probably PATA. In that case, your computer would probably crash.

jolynsbass · Post by **jolynsbass** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 10:00 am

antifro wrote:If I'm not mistaken, SATA hard drives are hot swappable. But it sounds like your 80gb is old and is probably PATA. In that case, your computer would probably crash.

Yes, I did forget to mention that my main drive is SATA on a RAID controller, while the old drive is connected via the IDE controller.

Are you saying that if the system drive were PATA/IDE and it were turned "off" by revosleep, it would crash, while SATA drives wouldn't? Interesting.