How to prevent external HDD from going to sleep?

Fortitude · 08 Jun 2019

I have four external hard disks connected to my laptop either directly or through a USB hub. I have searched the issue that I'm asking about, but I have not found a definitive answer. The most common solution appears to be to use a program to write a small file to each hard disk at predetermined times.

One of my external disks (a Samsung D3 4 TB disk) does have a utility to adjust sleep time, but it doesn't run on Windows 10.

I have actually ran one of these generic programs, but I'm wondering if there is a more elegant solution to use Windows settings to prevent external hard disks from going to sleep.

dalchina · 09 Jun 2019

Hi, like this ? But I'm not clear if that equally affects external disks.. you may already have checked this.
Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle in Windows 10

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/prevent-hard-drive-going-sleep-windows

- this seems to indicate, as you say, external disks are treated separately, which makes sense- as it refers to the method you mention.

But comments after this tutorial indicates it may apply to external disks (but note comment about possible internal power management):
Add or Remove Turn off hard disk after from Power Options in Windows