# XP Power Options - Turn off Hard Disks



## youtin

On Windows XP,  Power Options, under Power Schemes :

Turn Off monitor
Turn Off Hard disks
System Standby

My question is, what happens when you turn off the hard disks? Suppose you set the hard disks to turn off after 30 minutes, if you were downloading or converting something, what would happen? Would it stop?

Thanks!


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## StrangleHold

Pretty sure it wont turn off while there disk activity


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## OvenMaster

I have my drives set to spin down after 5 minutes of inactivity. Whenever something needs to be read or written, the drive that needs the activity automatically starts up. It will then shut down again 5 minutes after the end of activity.
Tom


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## PohTayToez

Setting your hard disks to shut off is one of the worst things you can do for them.  The stopping and starting of hard disks causes wear, so you want to minimize that as much as possible, and the power saved from shutting them down is next to insignificant.


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## PC eye

The "never" setting is the setting here on everything. I don't even have a screen saver set to come on. With an lcd you can simply turn that off if you want to leave something running without it being disturbed. But even those don't use anywhere the same as crts do.


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## OvenMaster

PohTayToez said:


> Setting your hard disks to shut off is one of the worst things you can do for them.  The stopping and starting of hard disks causes wear, so you want to minimize that as much as possible, and the power saved from shutting them down is next to insignificant.



I once thought that way too, but my master drive is over five years old and still works fine. My drives are idle more than they're working, 9 times out of 10, anyway.
Tom


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## PC eye

Anyone need a 50mb or 500mb WD drive? There's a pair of those old drives lying around on a shelf here somewhere that came out of systems that regularly saw the standby mode. You're talking some old drives there. I simply leave everything set to never since WD drives see less power consumption then other makes.


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