I want to turn an external drive into an internal one.

[Quick Draw McGraw]

I was thinking of getting a secondary HDD for data storage (500GB SATA II; running at SATA I on my Asus P4C800 Deluxe but transferable to a SATA II MB in future).

Sometimes I won’t need to access the data but once or twice a week and sometimes I will need to access it 8 hours a day.

It’s kind of a waste to run it 8 hours a day all week long if I only access the data once or twice during that week and I don’t know if it’s wise to run it 8 hours a day in an external enclosure.

I thought I could hook the 500GB to a USB 2 interface inside my case and mount an external on/off switch, kind of like having an external drive inside my case without the external enclosure.

Think that would work? (over the external enclosure the HDD would have better cooling via my case fans and create less desk clutter)

Or if I hook it up as an internal SATA drive and splice in an on/off switch to its power (from my PSU). And just turn it on when needed.

If when my computer was up and running and I turn on the secondary drive would Windows recognize it (as it does when you turn on an external USB device) or would I need to reboot or is it a foolish idea?

Or is there a way to turn an internal HDD on and off independent from the computer?

 

[Vertigo Acid]

Why go to all the trouble?
Just put in a normal drive, and in the power options, you can set your drives to spin down after X minutes of inactivity

 

[Quick Draw McGraw]

Thanks will do! Great easy, simple, practical solution!

The power management doesn't let me set power options for each HDD separately so I set to turn off HDDs after 10 minutes.

I can hear it click off after 10 minutes but is there anyplace that shows the drive has powered down?

 

[jebo_4jc]

Thanks will do! Great easy, simple, practical solution!

The power management doesn't let me set power options for each HDD separately so I set to turn off HDDs after 10 minutes.

I can hear it click off after 10 minutes but is there anyplace that shows the drive has powered down?

Can you just listen to the drives to see if they're still spinning?

And BTW, Quick Draw McGraw is one of the most unique screen names I have heard in a long time. I used to love that guy!