Win7 How do I delay time before usb drive sleeps?

[Fidcal]

One of my usb drive spins down about every 5 mins or so. That's not long enough. If I'm using it every few minutes it's fine but if I don't access for ten or fifteen minutes then it hangs while it spins up.

 

I thought there used to be a simple setting in the power setting in Control panel but I can't see it now. Tried right click drive - properties (that shows all drives so not easy to tell which physical drive this is,) tried google, even as a last resort tried Windows help (haha!) but no luck.

[Lux]

Is there a setting for that under "Advanced" power options? Like turn off hard drive after and set to "never". Would that work?

[SeriousToni]

You mean for your hard disk? There is a software tool but I don't recall the name. Just search for "software hdd sleep prevention" or something

 

EDIT: got ninjaed

Edited June 20, 2013 by SeriousToni

[Lux]

Well it would be nice to do it on a per drive basis as my solution is kind of an all or nothing approach. I'd think you could set some registry value for an individual drive which is probably what the software you're talking about does.

 

EDIT:

 

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/77557/

 

This post talks about Windows 7's inability to do it on a per drive basis however the third post mentions HDDscan which is freeware that has worked for some people depending on the drives firmware support of the feature I suppose.

 

Maybe give that a shot?

Edited June 20, 2013 by Lux

[Fidcal]

Thanks for info; some interesting stuff there. I see now the general time-out for drives in Win 7. I couldn't even find that before! It's set at 20 minutes which surprises me but just about believable. Of course, that might not work on usb drives but I'll give it a try and see if it makes any difference.

 

Meanwhile, I downloaded that HDDscan but although it lists all my drives, the option I want is feinted out for usb drives.

 

If the Win7 power option is not satisfactory then I might consider writing a simple program that creates a random number and writes it to a file on the drive every N minutes. That should keep forcing the drive to restart its natural time-out.

[jaxa]

You might be able to find some options in the Device Manager.

[Fidcal]

No, the only option in Device Manager is the write-cache enable/disable.

[Lux]

Fidcal, along with the power option for hard drives there is also a USB timer option which should probably also be on all the time.

 

I have issues with my mouse after idle if I don't set usb power to always on.

[Fidcal]

Mmm... that just seems to be an enabled/disabled option for all usb ports and it's enabled. You mean the one in advanced power settings?

[Lux]

Yes, in advancd power options. Sorry for not clarifying that

 

USB Selective Suspend "Disabled"

[Fidcal]

Okay, now disabled to see if that helps... Thanks.