W530 NewmodeUS caddy - putting HD to sleep

I recently purchased an SSD for my W530 and moved the HDD into the DVD drive location using a NewmodeUS caddy.

However, I'm having two issues. Number 2 is very important, so any help is welcome!

1. The drive is considered a removable drive so I cannot use it for automatic Windows 7 backup images.
2. The drive does not sleep.

I worked around 1 by making a folder a network share. Windows will backup to this as a network drive.

However, number 2 is quite frustrating. Part of the reason I purchased an SSD was because I work in a quiet environment and I wanted a silent computer. The Hard drive noise is annoying. How can I put it to sleep? I've mucked with the power manager settings but it does not sleep.

Thanks.

 

I guess you could try the "eject" option in the system tray for the caddy drive which should turn it OFF, I imagine you would then need to quickly eject and insert the drive to bring it back online or restart the laptop.

I use the same caddy as do many others here but I have never needed to put the drive to sleep. I think my drive goes to sleep automatically if it's idle for longer than X minutes as set in Power Manager. It's not often that I don't access my caddy drive for extended periods of time.

Also remember that if you have any applications that run in the background or have services that do the same, installed on the caddy HDD, then I doubt it will go to sleep as these services may need constant access to the drive.

I personally install all Programs on my 256GB SSD and use my 512GB HDD as storage for all my files (music, video, pictures etc), including utilities/application setup files but no actual programs are installed on the 512GB HDD. I find the factory HDD to be very quiet and hardly makes a noise.

 

As if there was only one kind for all ThinkPads, yours and theirs.

 

Yes your right Kaso, there is more than one brand of HDD used on the W530. I have the Toshiba, I am told they also use the Hitachi. However I would be surprised if one was a lot louder than the other, you would think Lenovo would want to keep noise levels fairly consistent on each model regardless of which brand drive they use but maybe I'm wrong and Lenovo don't care.

 

That's what I've been doing. I'm using the second drive for backup and less frequently used files so ejecting it this way works for me. However, it is annoying because I like to have Windows backup automatically. It will not do this if the drive is ejected.

I've also got the Toshiba drive. At my office desk I don't hear it, but when I work from home, or even in a quiet conference room, I find the sound quite apparent and irritating.

I'm not using the HDD for programs so I assumed Windows power saving would automatically turn it off. It seems to work sometimes...?

 

It does work, and it shouldn't be caddy model related, as caddy is merely a plastic box with SATA pass-through. However, as noted above, it's a matter of finding and uninstalling/disabling/re-configuring the background applications that may request access to the drive, and spin it off anyway. Also, sound may vary depending on the caddy and attachment of a particular HDD to that (after all, it's a sound amplifier - metal/plastic mostly empty box with a spinning vibrating something inside, inserted into a metal cage)

So your choices are really:
1) Try to find offending applications (you may find tools like Process Monitor helpful , logging access to your HDD drive )
2) Apply soft padding around the HDD, plastic feet etc, to make it fit into the caddy better and pass vibrations less
3) Buy another SSD and forget about the whole thing.

I hate the sound and vibration as well, so #3 was my choice. Considering even the best 512GB SSD are sub-$500, and often in $3xx, it's not as expensive as it used to be, and is faster and more reliable.

 

Assumption.

Delusion. (They can't even keep the fan noise level "fairly consistent" across all ThinkPads.)

I'd rather put the prefix "IMHO" clearly in front of such statements.

Ah.

Anyway, the OP was asking about "putting the HDD in the UltraBay to sleep."

 

I'm not talking across all Thinkpads, I was talking about keeping consistent noise levels on each model. - It should be clear for those who read that the statements being made were my opinion and not fact hence no need for IMHO. I even go on to say "maybe I'm wrong and Lenovo don't care". I hardly see a problem with my expression. If I make a statement of fact there will be no ambiguity, you can be sure of that.

I know what the OP was asking about and offered him some helpful information. You are nitpicking my word selection, it would be more productive to apply your knowledge towards making a positive contribution on the thread rather than trying to clarify something that didn't really need clarification to begin with.

 

The HDD is only storing a windows image backup and some zip files. The only thing It could be is the virus scanner. The zips are fairly large, so it could be the virus scanner poking through them. Will take a closer look.

That being said, the drive does sleep sometimes. Maybe when windows gets used to it it'll work properly

Thanks!

 

Although it has been while, but I worked around this by using HotSwap!(a soft to hot swap your sata drive) and Lock and Load (can run event-triggered commands)

Once you have both, you just need to modify the Lock and Load configuration file to execute hotswap off your hard drive each time you login: for example

<ExecuteItemsArray>
<Executable
FileName="path to you hotswap\HotSwap!.EXE"
Arguments="DISK=1"
Trigger="SessionUnlock"
UseShellExecute="false"
WaitToFinish="false"
CreateWindow="false" />
</ExecuteItemsArray>

where the argument "DISK=1" should be the drive you want to swap off.

Your second drive should remain off while you are using the laptop. Whenever you need it, you simply go through HotSwap! by the option "Scan for hardware changes".
This is it.

 

Nobody has mentioned. Right click on the drive under My Computer. Properties. Hardware tab. Select the drive in question and hit Properties. Go to the Policies tab. Make sure that "Better Performance" is selected, and that "Enable write caching on this device" is checked. I believe that makes the drive appear as an internal hard drive.