Windows 10: External USB drive sleeps when idle

I have a independently-powered WD Elements 8TB external HDD connected via USB 3.0 to one of the ports on my ASRock Z170 motherboard. I'm running Win10 Pro v1903, and I've read that my issue isn't uncommon.

While I've never sat down & timed it down to the minute, if the drive is sitting idle definitely for less than an hour, it will enter sleep mode and, any means of accessing data on the drive becomes useless--as an example, if I have media I'm wanting to watch or listen to remotely through Plex (even if I'm at home on the same network as the computer in question), it decides I can't because the server location is unavailable.

I've essentially set my computer's Power Options > Advanced settings to High performance, which has included setting "Turn off hard disk after" to 9999 minutes (though I'm pretty sure that only applies to any internal drives connected via SATA cables, right?). Under Sleep, Sleep, Hybrid Sleep & Hibernate are all effectively turned off. Under USB Settings, the only option that appears is USB selective suspend, which I've also disabled. Under the Multimedia Settings, I have it set to not suspend if any playback is occurring.

Other than those, I can't find any other settings that would allow me mess with the USB devices sleeping. I've read elsewhere some people suggest downloading a mouse-jiggler app, but that wouldn't help me here since it wouldn't have any way of entering the drive and randomly opening one file just to keep it active.

What's even more bizarre is I have a separate 4-bay NAS system that never seems to have any issues with entering sleep mode, despite the fact that it's used far less frequently than the aforementioned standalone drive.

Do I just need to crack open the WD case and make the drive internal, or is there some other setting I'm missing here? Thanks for your assistance!

submitted by /u/fell-deeds-awake
[link] [comments]

:)

 

External USB Drive never goes to sleep

I'm wanting my external USB 2 drive to go to sleep after being idle but it never does.

I have disabled indexing and defender scanning on it but it still just keeps going.

I've also run sfc /scannow with no errors.

Win 10 x64 Home

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

Toshiba External USB drives not showing in Explorer or Disk Management Plug-in

Thank you for the update.

Looks like your system is unable to detect your external hard drive. Let's see if scanning for new hardware will fix the issue. Follow these steps:

• Press the Windows key to launch the Start menu.
• Type in Device Manager and press Enter.
• Under Device Manager, select Action tab > Scan for hardware changes.
• Wait for your system to install the generic driver for your device and follow the on-screen instructions.

If the issue still persists, we suggest that you perform the following recommendations below:

• Plug in your external USB drives to other USB device port of your system.
• Use other USB cables for your external device to connect to your system.

Keep us updated and we will be glad to assist you further.

 

External hard drive not recognised

Thanks for this. I've done what you suggested and been through all the steps mentioned in the article. The hard drive works fine on a Mac computer, and I've managed to copy the information on it. It must be a Surface issue so I'll try to get a chat line tomorrow.