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What is the best way to prevent a laptop's HDD from spinning down?

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Maq___ 28 April 2018 12:56:49

Hi to all,

my Lenovo Y-700-15ISK laptop's 1 TB Western Digital BLUE HDD, is causing micro-stuttering while gaming,because it spins down while inactive (or something like that)!

Many users who own this laptop model had complained about this!

So I would please you to tell me what is the best way to fix this issue,in order to play the games without the micro-stuttering issue!

Thanks to all in advance!
Best regards!
 
Usually there's an option in a bios that disables spin down , not sure if your able to get in it
 
BIOs or leave something small running in the background the uses the HDD
 
I have no such option in the BIOS, and I tried today a little app called KeepAliveHD,but it doesn't help!

Just install something like real temp or GPUZ that you can enable to launch on start up ,and then leave it running.

Isn't there an option in windows power schemes to prevent hard drive spin down?
There is, just set it to never spin down.
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Just install something like real temp or GPUZ that you can enable to launch on start up ,and then leave it running.

Isn't there an option in windows power schemes to prevent hard drive spin down?
There is, just set it to never spin down.
36152d1485956594-turn-off-hard-disk-after-idle-windows-10-a-turn_off_hard_disks.png


3875_10.png

Thank you so much!
 
Just FYI, some hard drives will spin down and park the heads themselves when idle. This is especially true with laptop hard drives, and I believe the WD Blue/Green drives are known for this. If this is what is happening with you, nothing you can do will stop it.
 
Power options, never sleep but if its a green drive there is nothing you can do
Put a SSD in it
 
Just FYI, some hard drives will spin down and park the heads themselves when idle. This is especially true with laptop hard drives, and I believe the WD Blue/Green drives are known for this. If this is what is happening with you, nothing you can do will stop it.

I thought that might be the case too ,but he's saying that it's happening during gaming, which is confusing.
 
If you have Intel RST(Rapid Storage Technology) installed, you need to also make sure you have Link Power Management disabled.
 
I thought that might be the case too ,but he's saying that it's happening during gaming, which is confusing.

Well, I can see it happening. The game loads everything it needs, then the HDD goes idle because everything the game needs loaded, the HDD spins down and parks the heads. Then the game needs something, a new texture or something, and the game stutters while it waits for the HDD to spin back up and load the texture.

Some of these WD Blue/Green drives can be super aggressive about spinning down and parking the heads, like doing it after 10 or less seconds. I think the latest WD Blue drives are 8 seconds. No setting in the BIOS or Windows will affect this.

There is a utility that is supposed to be able to adjust that park time, but AFAIK it doesn't work with new WD drives, it now only tells you what the idle time is set to on the drive, but WD removed the ability to change the idle time from the newer drives.
 
Use a utility like hdd sentinel if you want to disable headparking.

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Be aware it is commercial software.
 
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If its a hgst/hitachi drive there is feature tool, im unaware if Seagate or western digital have such tools.
 
I have no such option in the BIOS, and I tried today a little app called KeepAliveHD,but it doesn't help!
Windows power options. There is an option to set when the HDD sleeps. You can set it between 1 & 999 minutes or 0 = Never.
WindowsPowerOptions2.jpg
WindowsPowerOptions.jpg


im unaware if Seagate or western digital have such tools.
They do, but I think the Windows setting would be more helpful for them in this situation.
 
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