When My Passport Essential has been left idle for almost 20 minutes, the disk will stop rotating, and it will start rotating again when I read files on it.
Is that a built-in function on the HDD or Windows 10?
Both of mine do the same, a 750GB and 1TB models. I believe it's simply a power saving feature, not a problem for me as they do not contain an Operating System, don't need the same instant access as the OS.
Could be Windows is set to shut it down for Energy Savings. Check it's properties in Device Manager:
My WD Elements External Drive has it's own power supply so I don't have that issue.
Good luck...
'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' is disabled at my end.
I have never changed this setting before, so it must be the default.
This has been an OS feature for a long time. But some drives will power down independently of the OS, often with option to change the behavior.
Power Options > Edit Plan Settings > Change advanced power settings:
When enabled, external hard disks will disconnect when idle.
Some figures to demonstrate that an external USB HDD is quite capable of powering itself down while not being accessed without any help from a Windows OS. This is the S.M.A.R.T. info for a USB HDD that was plugged into my router (so no Windows system controlling it) 24 hours a day for well over two years. Compare the (09) Power-On Hours with the (DE) Loaded Hours. You will see that for 95% of its life it was in standby. Contrast that with my laptop's HDD, where the Loaded Hours are 82% of the Power-On Hours.
Oh, and the reason I replaced it? Well the Current Pending Sector Count is entirely due to my carelessness. I dropped it while it was spinning and the heads hit the platter with a loud 'ping'.
Quote
