Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10  

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    Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10

    Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10

    How to Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10
    Published by Category: Performance & Maintenance
    05 Nov 2022
    Designer Media Ltd

    How to Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10


    The Turn off hard disk after setting in Power Options lets users set to have hard disks (HDD) power down after a specified time of HDD inactivity is detected. This setting will not affect a SSD (Solid State Drive) or NVMe.

    Having your HDDs automatically turned off after being idle can help save energy and extend a PC's battery life.

    When you or anything tries to access a HDD that has been turned off, there will be a delay of a few seconds as the HDD automatically spins back up and is turned back on before being able to access it.

    This tutorial will show you how to turn off hard disks after being idle for specified minutes or to never in your power plan in Windows 10.

    If you have set to turn off hard disk after idle, then you will experience a delay if you restart explorer since you will have to wait for all disks turned off to spin back up and turn on before explorer is restarted.



    Contents

    • Option One: To Change Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle Setting in Power Options
    • Option Two: To Change Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle Setting in Command Prompt






    OPTION ONE

    To Change Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle Setting in Power Options


    1 Open your advanced power plan settings.

    2 Expand open Hard disk and Turn off hard disk after, set how many minutes or never for what you want, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)

    The default is 20 minutes. It is not recommended to set a low amount of minutes. Doing so can cause more wear and tear on HDDs since they will spin up and down more often.


    Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10-turn_off_hard_disks.png






    OPTION TWO

    To Change Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle Setting in Command Prompt


    1 Open a command prompt.

    2 Enter the command(s) below you want to use into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshots below)

    (On battery)
    powercfg -change -disk-timeout-dc <minutes>

    OR

    powercfg /SETDCVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 6738e2c4-e8a5-4a42-b16a-e040e769756e <seconds>

    AND/OR

    (Plugged in)
    powercfg -change -disk-timeout-ac <minutes>

    OR

    powercfg /SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 6738e2c4-e8a5-4a42-b16a-e040e769756e <seconds>

    Substitute <minutes> in the commands above with how many minutes you want to turn off hard disk after.

    Substitute <seconds> in the commands above with how many seconds you want to turn off hard disk after.

    Using 0 (zero) minutes or seconds will be the same as "Never".

    The default data value is 1200 seconds (20 minutes).


    Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10-turn_off_hard_disk_after_command-dc.png
    Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10-turn_off_hard_disk_after_command-ac.png


    That's it,
    Shawn Brink






  1. Posts : 46
    64-bit 10240 10 Pro
       #1

    Wouldn't this only affect a system that has more than one hard drive or partitions?
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 68,655
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
    Thread Starter
       #2

    Hey Gary, :)

    It'll affect any connected HDD that sits idle after the specified minutes. Of course the OS HDD may not turn off after the specified minutes until Windows is finished doing anything with the HDD.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 46
    64-bit 10240 10 Pro
       #3

    But when I place my PS in sleep, the Hard Drive does turn off Right?
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 68,655
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Oh yes, sleep and shut down will always turn off the HDD.

    This is only for idle HDDs while Windows is still running.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 46
    64-bit 10240 10 Pro
       #5

    Thanks Shawn , that is why at least for me I would have to be using two hard drives or an SSD +HD.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 14
    Windows 7
       #6

    Is it possible to set to never by registry or Command Prompt?
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 68,655
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
    Thread Starter
       #7

    It's just not worth the effort to do so since this setting is also dependent on the specific power plan selected. Of course this will vary to much be usable.
    Last edited by Brink; 07 Sep 2015 at 09:00. Reason: typo
      My Computers


  8. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #8

    What I found here was I could go into the advanced settings for each power plan option including creating your own custom plan and change the hard drive setting from the default 20 minutes in Balanced for example to never as well as having the display set to never in each plan and click on the save changes option when exiting. I found that out in previous versions before 7 even where the defaults would end up being reset if I saw any unexpected hard boots when a program locked and the display would turn off after being set to remain on all the time.

    The only thing involving the system registry as far as power plans go was backing the registry settings for the plan selected. You don't want to be going into the registry otherwise when not necessary to make changes there. The power plan scheme was what was backed up on previous versions. That had been the "power.cfg -export C:" command to make a back up copy of the present power plan that was applied.

    It would interesting to find out if the same type of command will work for 10. That had been the "default.pow" file. The reverse could also be seen by importing the default plan if you found the settings had returned to their defaults for some reason. That of course would include the setting for the hard drive never or turn off after so many minutes option it was set for. As far as each individual plan you can still make the changes in setting by going into the Advanced settings as the guide here shows.
      My Computers


  9. Posts : 73
    Windows 10
       #9

    Thanks for the tutorial buddy.
      My Computer


 

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