Power On/Off HDDs

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baco80

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 22, 2010
Messages
111
Don't know if this could be possible. Power on/off hard drives without having to open the case.

Have 5 HDD's and an upcoming SSD. I dont need most of the drives all time, just in particular moments, so I see useless to have them powered always, bc energy waste and plates running all the time with no point and shortening lifespan.

So the only solution I know is to open up and closing the case every time I need to access the data on a particular drive. For everyday tasks, I just need the SSD for the OS and 1 or 2 HDDs the most.

Is there a way to control HDDs powering, either from the OS or the motherboard at bios, without having to fight with the case opening/closing?
 
You don't need to open your case. Spend $25, add some molexes and it will solve all your problems. Control up to four hard drives

Military-SwitchBus-Black_01.JPG


Tthey are sold here:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...duct_info&cPath=130_151_257&products_id=27182
 
Spindown would be my first choice as well.
Turning them off physically could cause lots of other problems. Maybe it could work if you installed your OS as AHCI. than maybe it would be gentle to hdds. Treat them as e-sata drives maybe.
If not, I wouldn't risk my data by just cutting their power without powering down the PC and restarting with the drives turned on from the start.
 
XS Janus said:
Spindown would be my first choice as well.
Turning them off physically could cause lots of other problems. Maybe it could work if you installed your OS as AHCI. than maybe it would be gentle to hdds. Treat them as e-sata drives maybe.
If not, I wouldn't risk my data by just cutting their power without powering down the PC and restarting with the drives turned on from the start.
Click to expand...

Don't care If I have to power on/down the computer each time I need aceess or disconect a HDD. its fine as long as I have not to open the case. If hot plug may be risky, I just wont hot plug/unplug them.

Whats the OS as AHCI? can I do that with W7?


rmd3003 said:
You don't need to open your case. Spend $25, add some molexes and it will solve all your problems. Control up to four hard drives

Military-SwitchBus-Black_01.JPG


Tthey are sold here:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...duct_info&cPath=130_151_257&products_id=27182
Click to expand...

Can I use shortest cable lenght so I can plug the end of the cable at HDDs side instead of taking it to the PSU side? Its for this case:

http://www.caseandcooling.fr/images/morfeoshow/silverstone_-7262/big/silverstone-ft0278.jpg
 
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paxious said:
Looks like these switches only break the 12v line and not both the 12v and 5v.
Might want to look into that.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, that's right, it's only 12v - so it's no good. He should use DPDT swithches instead. They have them too (or radioshack). They can control both 5v and 12v. Ground (black) wires don't have to use switch.

Rocker-DPDT-BK_01.jpg

Rocker-DPDT-BK_02.jpg


That's how it works:
Dpdt.jpg

Dpdtsoldered.jpg
 
No, you can't. Ask performance-pcs guys if they can take blank lian-li bay cover and install for you those DPDT switches with wireing and molexes. But I think it will run for $20 or $30. Just send them an email, tell them what you need and they do custom switch for you (at least I think so...). I might be wrong though.......
 
rmd3003 said:
No, you can't. Ask performance-pcs guys if they can take blank lian-li bay cover and install for you those DPDT switches with wireing and molexes. But I think it will run for $20 or $30. Just send them an email, tell them what you need and they do custom switch for you (at least I think so...). I might be wrong though.......
Click to expand...

I've been looking for that device you posted (Lian Li Aluminum Military Switch Bus) at lianlis website. Kinda strange it doesnt apear, the device shown on perfomance-pcs.com as lianli official product. I looked up then at lianlis website and found this:

Power Switch For HDDs

It says explicit "for HDDs". "Single HDD 12V/2A & 5V/2A"

Isnt there nothing like this out there? since this is yet to be relased by march...
 
Last edited:
baco80 said:
I've been looking for that device you posted (Lian Li Aluminum Military Switch Bus) at lianlis website. Kinda strange it doesnt apear, the device shown on perfomance-pcs.com as lianli official product. I looked up then at lianlis website and found this:

Power Switch For HDDs

It says explicit "for HDDs". "Single HDD 12V/2A & 5V/2A"

Isnt there nothing like this out there? since this is yet to be relased by march...
Click to expand...

I guess they are using lian-li plate and installing their switches. That lian-li 6hd device you found is awesome but where to find it? not relesed yet......
 
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Well its finally been released by now; im wondering how to set it up.. I mean, what cables or anything else do I need between the switches and the HDDs, what kind of cables and how to connect it?

bz-h06-01.jpg

bz-h06-03.jpg
 
A free tool to do that on linux and windows is hdparm. In windows 7 / vista you have to run it in an elevated prompt and figure out what drive is what since it can be weird to see the *nix hda.

For example:
hdparm -S 254 hda

Here is the linux man page for the -S parameter
-S Put the drive into idle (low-power) mode, and also set the
standby (spindown) timeout for the drive. This timeout value is
used by the drive to determine how long to wait (with no disk
activity) before turning off the spindle motor to save power.
Under such circumstances, the drive may take as long as 30 sec-
onds to respond to a subsequent disk access, though most drives
are much quicker. The encoding of the timeout value is somewhat
peculiar. A value of zero means "timeouts are disabled": the
device will not automatically enter standby mode. Values from 1
to 240 specify multiples of 5 seconds, yielding timeouts from 5
seconds to 20 minutes. Values from 241 to 251 specify from 1 to
11 units of 30 minutes, yielding timeouts from 30 minutes to 5.5
hours. A value of 252 signifies a timeout of 21 minutes. A
value of 253 sets a vendor-defined timeout period between 8 and
12 hours, and the value 254 is reserved. 255 is interpreted as
21 minutes plus 15 seconds. Note that some older drives may
have very different interpretations of these values.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdparm
 
valent said:
I use this

http://www.drivepowermanager.com/
Click to expand...

Yeah, already knew it, but its useless for my goal software solutions. It doesn't prevent the HDD power on when turning pc on. powering on-off-on-off.. the HDD, reduces its lifespan in a much more dramatically way than what it does constantly spindling longtimes.

Powering them (all HDDs) on-off every time I shutdown and restart pc, would be a totally mess. Just want to get them when I need specific data contained on each one.

drescherjm said:
A free tool to do that on linux and windows is hdparm. In windows 7 / vista you have to run it in an elevated prompt and figure out what drive is what since it can be weird to see the *nix hda.

For example:
hdparm -S 254 hda

Here is the linux man page for the -S parameter


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdparm
Click to expand...

Windows7 can do this too. On power management settings you can configure all this; but as I said, dont want to be forced the HDD to be powered on-off every time I turn on pc.
 
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