Windows 10: Hard drives never goes to sleep

**Warluck** · 13 Oct 2016

Bonjour,
I am having an issue with a "fresh" Windows 10 installation. I emphasis "fresh" because it ain't so fresh anymore but has been reinstalled and the problem was not present on my last installation.

I currently have 4 standard HDD (3x green, 1x black) and 1 SSD where Windows is installed.

The problem I have is even though there are absolutely no activity on the hard drives, they never goes to sleep. I have disabled Windows Search service (still, I was using it on my last installation with no problem with sleep).

I don't know what to do to fix this but I really want the hard drives to sleep when unused for many obvious reasons.

Is there a way to force the sleep or find what is preventing Windows from putting them to sleep?

Thanks all for your help and support on this.

**RolandJS** · 13 Oct 2016

I'm only familiar with Windows 7 Pro, so I'm guessing here.
Although you could via Control Panel --> Device Manager --> hard-drives section -- disable just prior to Windows session's end and re-enable at each Windows session's beginning -- that would not be a good solution long-term. Perhaps some of your security and/or monitoring programs are too assertively set? Perhaps Windows backup process is never resting, always working?

**Warluck** · 14 Oct 2016

Thanks for the answer. I have started disabling soft to find the one causing issue.

**kimkl** · 15 Oct 2016

No need for all that, right click the "old start button select power options Plan is properly Balanced
click change plan settings
Click change advanced power settings
Hard disk is right at the top properly set to 0 or 20
Because mine was when i wrote this somehow it was set to 0 meaning no sleep ofc for SSD HD you really do not want it to sleep because it shortens the SSD HD lifetime my reply to that B. hmm better keep this clean well i keep mine at 10 mins so change it to what ever you feel is best
AND turn back those services you disabled or not

**Kbird** · 15 Oct 2016

Check your Power Plan as mentioned but

Some Versions of Intel's RST Drivers in the 13/14 Series for SATA/RAID also cause this issue

for eg https://communities.intel.com/message/317604#317604

**Adalwar** · 16 Oct 2016

look also if Windows Disk Defragment / Optimize is "working". Try to disable that "feature".

**Catizero** · 16 Oct 2016

Im having this exactly same problem. I tried to disable optimize and indexing, sleep is set to 1 min to test but it never goes.

I have been searching on google for a while and seems a common problem but havent found a solution yet.

**Warluck** · 16 Oct 2016

Me neither and I have disabled almost all my services ... keep searching!

**Kbird** · 16 Oct 2016

Warluck said:

Me neither and I have disabled almost all my services ... keep searching!

Some Versions of Intel's RST Drivers in the 13/14 Series for SATA/RAID also cause this issue

for eg https://communities.intel.com/message/317604#317604

As noted above for some any RST Driver in the 14 or 15 series does not spin down properly

Try Version 13.6.0.1002 - spindown is reported as OK with them.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/dow...?product=55005

I am using 12.9.4.1000 , they are working too AND report my Raid array as HDD's not SSD's.

KB.

**Catizero** · 17 Oct 2016

I tried the driver you posted but it doesnt work for me either, and when trying to uninstall it always says "needs first to restart" tho I restarted a lot of times. I tried killing the services of RTS but it doesnt spin down either.

I went to the device manager and switched the SATA AHCI driver for the default windows one but it doesnt work. Was this the device related or was another one?

EDIT: OMG it went to sleep right now!!! I have it set for 1 min but it took like 5 for some reason. What I did is to uninstall manually the RST that I tried and, as said, using the windows default one. In my case I just have 1 HDD.

Im not sure if the drivers you posted would have worked cause I didnt wait 5 min...

Windows 10: Hard drives never goes to sleep

Hard drives never goes to sleep

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