I have some Ultrastar DC HC550 drives in a Windows 10 box.
I’ve set Windows power management to turn off drives after 20 minutes without use, but the Ultrastar drives never turn off. They are in some sort of inactive state, because they take a long time to respond after a long idle period; but I can feel the drive is still hot and still spinning even after 8 hours.
Is there a way to turn them off?
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Hi @Philbert
Have you checked our knowledge base articles?
(Support for Western Digital Hard Drives | Western Digital)
Have you opened a Support Case?
If not, contact Western Digital Technical Support for assistance.
(Contact Us | Western Digital)
Ultrastar DC HC550 drives are enterprise-grade and may not fully spin down due to firmware settings. Windows’ power settings may put them in a low-power idle state rather than fully stopping them. Try using WD’s Idle3 Tools or hdparm (via WSL or a bootable Linux USB) to adjust the APM (Advanced Power Management) or set a manual spin-down timeout. You can also check if Power-Up In Standby (PUIS) or SATA power management options are available in your BIOS. If the drives are managed by a RAID controller, ensure it isn’t preventing spin-down.
