Isnn't constant spin-up/ spin-down bad for a HDD?

[Lumia925]

When I connect my external HDD to my laptop, it spins down and shuts off completely (lights go off, no vibration, no whirring-spinning noise from the disk) after about 5 minutes of not accessing the drive. Now I don't use this as a backup drive, it's there to give me some extra storage space, so it get's accessed frequently.
Solutions tried so far:
1> Put computer to high performance power profile, no go.
2> Disabled USB selective suspend, no go.
3> Disabled "Turn off hard disks after" in power options, no go.
And this is what finally solved the spin down problem:-
4> Open REGEDIT as administrator. Go to:-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet \Control\ USBSTOR
Right click on USBSTOR and create a new key named 0BC22321 (Got VID and PID from device manager).
Inside 0BC22321 create a new "DWORD (32 bit) Value" and name it "DeviceHackFlags",
and assign it a hexadecimal value of 400.
Eject the HDD and plug it back in, and done, no more auto spin-downs.

This seems like a tedious process, and I assume most people who don't read forums like Tom's, won't bother with regedit. So, is there an easier way to achieve this feat?
Or is it okay for the hard drive to spin down after every 5 minutes, only to spin up again after another 2 minutes, constantly spinning up and down a hundred times all thru the day?
Thee HDD is Seagate Expansion, connected to a USB3 port. The spin-downs take place in every Windows 8.1 computer, but doesn't in a Windows 7 computer.

 

[Guest]

In my experience its quite unusual for a stepper motor to break. I wouldnt worry about this unless 1) its causing performance issues accessing the drive, 2) its become a technical challenge that you want to resolve.

 

[AirSKiller]

When I connect my external HDD to my laptop, it spins down and shuts off completely (lights go off, no vibration, no whirring-spinning noise from the disk) after about 5 minutes of not accessing the drive. Now I don't use this as a backup drive, it's there to give me some extra storage space, so it get's accessed frequently.
Solutions tried so far:
1> Put computer to high performance power profile, no go.
2> Disabled USB selective suspend, no go.
3> Disabled "Turn off hard disks after" in power options, no go.
And this is what finally solved the spin down problem:-
4> Open REGEDIT as administrator. Go to:-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet \Control\ USBSTOR
Right click on USBSTOR and create a new key named 0BC22321 (Got VID and PID from device manager).
Inside 0BC22321 create a new "DWORD (32 bit) Value" and name it "DeviceHackFlags",
and assign it a hexadecimal value of 400.
Eject the HDD and plug it back in, and done, no more auto spin-downs.

This seems like a tedious process, and I assume most people who don't read forums like Tom's, won't bother with regedit. So, is there an easier way to achieve this feat?
Or is it okay for the hard drive to spin down after every 5 minutes, only to spin up again after another 2 minutes, constantly spinning up and down a hundred times all thru the day?
Thee HDD is Seagate Expansion, connected to a USB3 port. The spin-downs take place in every Windows 8.1 computer, but doesn't in a Windows 7 computer.

Yes, tecnically the spinning down and up will introduce some extra wear and tear on the disk. However, I am yet to hear about a HDD motor to spot working as a result.
I would just say not to worry to much because it will just probably reduce the lifetime of the HDD from 15 years to 10, I doubt you need it.

 

[urbanrider]

Don’t worry about it. The HDD was designed to operate like this to save power etc. While technically the spin cycle is hard on the disk it would most likely wear out quicker if it was continually running all the time. There are arguments from both sides with no real concrete evidence that points either way.

Now if it’s just about it being annoying there are a few “safer” ways than just saying that its always on. The easiest way is to have something on that drive that gets accessed about every <5 min, I have a few programs that are always running, so my drives rarely spin down because they are always being accessed.
If you don’t have a program like that, you could write a quick script that writes a temporary file to the drive ever 4 min when you’re using the computer.

 

[fzabkar]

@Lumia925, if you want a single-click solution using the REGEDIT hack, then copy and paste the following 4 lines of text into a text file named keepspin.reg, say.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\USBSTOR]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\USBSTOR\0BC22321]
"DeviceHackFlags"=dword:00000400

Now double-click the REG file and it should be imported into your registry.

Note that "0BC22321" must reflect the Vendor ID and Product ID (VID/PID) of your device. In the present example, VID = 0BC2 and PID = 2321. This information should be visible in Device Manager. Alternatively, it should be reported by UVCView or USBDeview:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/b/a/eba1050f-a31d-436b-9281- 92cdfeae4b45/UVCView.x64.exe
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/USB_IDs/UVCView.x86.exe