Powering up a Hard Drive when needed

[JSF]

I am about to install a high capacity hard drive strictly for storing True Image backups. I would like to power up the hard drive only when I need it. Do any of you have suggestions how this might be done?

Are front panel switches available that can engage a hard drive?

I remember reading about this in Storage Review before the site lost its data cache. I hope my request doesn't recall painful memories.

Joe

 

[Mercutio]

A USB2/Firewire/eSATA enclosure seems like the most reasonable way to accomplish what you're after.

Actually, one of those cheap 3.5" inside 5.25" bay removable drives plus a SATA drive would do it.

 

[ddrueding]

Basically you are looking for a way to power up/down the drive? The most elegant solution I can think of is that the Seagate external drives have a power button on the front. Of course, any power strip/switch would do.

 

[ddrueding]

Actually, one of those cheap 3.5" inside 5.25" bay removable drives plus a SATA drive would do it.

Good idea. Also, doesn't power management only spin up drives that are being accessed? If the drive has nothing but backups on it, and windows is told not to index it, it should only spin up when needed.

 

[Clocker]

Running WinXP and 2GB RAM, my 2ndary drive only spins up when I try to access data that is on it. After about 20minutes, it spins down and doesn't wake up again until I try to read data from or write to the drive. Maybe you can get what you're looking for by adding extra ram.

 

[ddrueding]

Maybe you can get what you're looking for by adding extra ram.

So long as there isn't a page file on the drive, that shouldn't be an issue.

 

[JSF]

I thank all of you for your suggestions. Since I have four free computer bays and little desktop space I am interested in an internal solution to my problem. I did not make this clear in my post.

I like best the WinXP provision for shutting down a secondary drive, but since I am still using Win2k it is not an option.

So, I accepted Mercutio's suggestion and installed a Vantec EZ-SWAP removable hard disk enclosure for my Samsung SATA disk.

It offers three key positions, one of which allows me to remove disk power without removing the disk. This will be handy.

Thanks again,
Joe