Question Additional Hard Drives Not Spinning Down

[Josita]

Hi guys,

I just added two WD Blue Drives (1TB each) with raid 0 using Intel RST which is seen as a single 2 TB drive in windows. Windows 10 is currently installed on a non-raid SSD.

For whatever reason, those two drives which are only used for offline data never turns off even when nothing is being accessed all day. I've tried setting "turn off hard drive" in power options to 1 minute and disabling indexing but it still doesn't turn off.

The only time they turn off is when the PC is in shutdown, hibernation or sleep.

It's rather noisy and I want to preserve the lifespan of those drive as well.

Anyone knows why it doesn't turn off?

 

[Ralston18]

Have you tried Resource Monitor to discover "what" might be accessing those Raid 0 drives?

Task Manager may likewise provide further clues.

And there is also Process Explorer - you may need to download and install Process Explorer via Microsoft's website.

 

[fzabkar]

Perhaps it's because individual drives cannot be accessed behind a RAID controller?

Is there a drive management console for Intel's RST?

 

[mdd1963]

It's possible the RAID is interfering with normal power saving features employed by WIndows with individual drives, as once RST takes over...the RST software, drivers, and firmware implementation will prevail.

 

[Josita]

In Resource Monitor, nothing is accessing the drives, 0.00% active time.

Intel RST software does not have a setting for turning off inactive drives.

So am I stuck with constantly spinning hard drives?

 

[fzabkar]

WD used to provide a tool called WDIDLE to set the idle timer for certain models.

There is an open source tool which may do the job:
http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net/

 

[mdd1963]

In Resource Monitor, nothing is accessing the drives, 0.00% active time.

Intel RST software does not have a setting for turning off inactive drives.

So am I stuck with constantly spinning hard drives?

You can try removing that aspect, and seeing if such power controls are then possible...

I'd bet a full 25 cents at 5-1 that RST is somehow ultimately the culprit here....

 

[mdd1963]

no such options in/pertaining to RAID 0 setup?
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/help-intel-rst-never-spin-the-hard-drive-down/129364

 

[Josita]

no such options in/pertaining to RAID 0 setup?
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/help-intel-rst-never-spin-the-hard-drive-down/129364

I have no such options in Intel RST

https://imgur.com/a/x35IL5b

View: https://imgur.com/a/x35IL5b

 

[Josita]

A little update here, I unraided and set it back to AHCI mode but somehow those two drives still doesn't want to turn off...

Even setting them to "Offline" doesn't work.

Why doesn't the drives shut off?