Hey everyone, I've recently set up a RAID 1 array using some older hard drives on my Windows 11 PC, and while everything is functioning well, I'm having an annoying issue: the HDDs won't stop spinning when they aren't in use. I've tried adjusting the settings to turn off the hard disks after a certain period of inactivity, but it doesn't seem to work. I also looked through the BIOS RAID utility from MSI and couldn't find any relevant options. Does anyone have a solution to get these drives to shut off? For reference, my motherboard is a B550M Pro VDH. I've even disabled indexing, but that didn't help either.
2 Answers
It's pretty common for HDDs to spin continuously, especially if the OS is accessing them for any reason. Older drives can be noisier, too. If you want a quieter setup, consider switching to SSDs for your storage needs.
Sounds like you might have a background process or program that's keeping your drives active. Check your RAID controller software to see if there’s a process rebuilding or initializing. Also, peek at your task manager to ensure nothing's using those drives. If write caching is enabled, that could keep them active too.
I checked, and the task manager shows 0% usage. Plus, disabling write caching didn't work for me.
I get that, but I use HDDs for videos and stuff because of space issues. SSDs are great but can be pricey!