WD5002AALX spins down in use; is it IntelliPower?

I have two systems with an SSD system drive and a Black 500GB WD5002AALX internal data drive. Windows was installed with the BIOS set to AHCI. On both systems, if I don’t access the Black for some time (30 minutes?), it appears to spin down. What I mean by this is that if I double-click on a folder on that drive in My Computer, there is a five second delay before the folder shows the contents. I suspect it is either IntelliPower or Windows spinning it down as a power-saving measure. If I constantly access the data, the response is immediate. Windows 7 does not appear to offer the option of “always spin hard drives while Windows is running.”

Is the WD5002AALX an IntelliPower drive albeit one which spins at 7200 rpm?

IntelliPower is a fine-tuned balance of spindoctoring and technobabble designed to obfuscate the actual rotational speed, namely 5400 RPM.

To determine whether the drive’s own APM is spinning it down, pause the POST before Windows boots, or go into BIOS setup and wait 30 minutes.

I left it in BIOS (Intel, if it matters) for 40 minutes in a screen which displays all SATA drives, but nothing changed. I’m not sure that proved anything because I could not access data on the drive from there. Then I looked in W-7 Hardware Manager and saw no options for the drive. Then I looked in Control Panel, but the only power settings appear to be for the PC as a whole and the monitor.

If the drive remains spinning when in BIOS (ie when it is not being accessed) but spins down after 30 minutes when in Windows, then this would point to a Windows power management setting as the cause.

But not knowing how BIOS works, I can see one way the drive could spin down in BIOS:it spins down, but the screen is just reflecting the original instance of it, i.e. it is not being refreshed.

I say this because in Windows, the top-level folders appear immediately when I click on that drive in My Computer. The delay ocurrs when I double-click on one of those folders, i.e. the screen is just reflecting the original instance of it.

But I’m sure you’re correct that it is Windows being funny.