Hard Disk Monitoring

My HDDs are set to a value of zero in Windows to never allow spindown.
They are also set within HDS to do the same. This post is to find out the difference between Windows preventing spindown and HDS doing the same.
And if those features should be used together or not.

How does Hard Disk Sentinel's feature of never spinning down drives (with an asterisk for all drives) further prevent spindown of attached drives, beyond windows built in setting?

I have always had windows prevent spindown due to my drives being Enterprise in a 24/7 environment.

Thing is, I swear I can hear my drives spin up and down when I am not using the asterisk in HDS settings to never spindown my drives.
I am referring to SATA disks not USB externals. My drive detection period is defaulted at 5 minutes for accurate Smart data reporting of temps, etc.

Would you please elaborate on HDS's spindown setting feature and whether it's recommended to use the setting in Hard disk sentinel to prevent spindown? Does windows accomplish this same task?

Is there any risk or benefit to having Hard Disk Sentinel prevent spindown on all drives or using it in conjunction with a zero setting on windows shutting disks down?

Generally if you adjust the hard disk drive spin down timeout in Windows to avoid spin down, you may still notice that the hard disk drive can spin down / spin up. This is possible because the hard disk drive may have its own power management functionality (called Advanced Power Management) which can activate (to spin down the drive) even if want to disable this behaviour in Windows.

Some drives support an option to adjust this internal power management function: if supported (you can verify on the Information page in Hard Disk Sentinel) then from the Disk menu -> Advanced Power Management option you can adjust this behaviour. Usually setting 254 (maximum power consumption without standby) can help to avoid spin down.
Some drives may not support this (and can spin down) or they do not support properly (eg. the settings need to be automatically re-adjusted after each power cycles, which Hard Disk Sentinel can do if the option enabled).


> How does Hard Disk Sentinel's feature of never spinning down drives (with an asterisk for all drives)
> further prevent spindown of attached drives, beyond windows built in setting?

If the option at Configuration -> Disk Control page used to prevent spin down of a disk drive (or all if the * character specified), then Hard Disk Sentinel periodically sends a command to the drive to reset the idle time counter and "keep" the drive awake. This designed exactly to prevent spin down even if none of the above solutions work to avoid spin down (eg. if the drive does not support Advanced Power Management setting) or even in other special situations too, for example if the drive is used with USB adapter/enclosure as its chipset can also attempt to power down the drive when it is not used for longer period. The * character fixes this: then Hard Disk Sentinel prevents spin down by a periodic command sent to the drive, so it is generally not "idle" to spin down.


> I have always had windows prevent spindown due to my drives being Enterprise in a 24/7 environment.

Then you can use the combination of both of the above solutions:
- try to disable spin down by Windows Power Management setting
- optional: try to disable spin down by setting the Advanced Power Management level to 254 (if supported by the drive)
- use the * character in the Configuration -> Disk Control page -> Do not allow spin down of disks field in Hard Disk Sentinel
to avoid the spin down.


> Would you please elaborate on HDS's spindown setting feature and whether it's recommended to use the
> setting in Hard disk sentinel to prevent spindown?

Yes, it is recommended to use if you prefer to avoid spin down. Personally I use this setting too in all 24/7 systems.


> Does windows accomplish this same task?

Absolutely not. Windows (based on the idle counter setting) may (or may not) send a command to the drive to "spin down now".
However, Windows does not control the internal power management function of the drive which can activate on its own.
This is why we need other methods to
- control this internal power management function (eg. to prevent spin down) if possible
or
- prevent the spin down by other solutions: by periodic communication with the drive to avoid the event of spin down due to inactivity.


> Is there any risk or benefit to having Hard Disk Sentinel prevent spindown on all drives or
> using it in conjunction with a zero setting on windows shutting disks down?

Assuming that the drives are properly configured, mounted, the power source is fine, cooling etc... are correctly working, there is no risk of course.
The benefits are
- longer hard disk lifetime (lower spin down / spin up cycles)
- faster response / operation / performance (no need to wait until spin up again)

Fantastic reply from a fantastic company with excellent software. Thank you this is now resolved.