How to turn off individual hard drives through software

[DarKStar]

Actually thanks for all the replies but power saving has nothing to do with why I want to do t his :) Yes I am aware that cycling on/off consumes more power, it's just that the 2nd HDD will have multi purpose, it will bootable and will also serve as storage and there are going to be very long periods where I won't need to use it so it would be a waste to leave it on 24/7, more heat more wear for nothing. The reason I do not want to use USB enclosure, because it's USB :D and those controllers used are very limited, even at USB2..... I guess I will end up probably buying an eSATA enclosure :D but I already have collected enough enclosures to open a store, they are not too old and they work great. and they are useful to me for specific tasks I need to do where speed is not an issue. But for this specific need, I will be requiring faster speeds to complement.

[Zero82z]

Originally Posted by DarKStar

Thanks but the whole idea is that I want to control this by software and not physically unplug connectors.

You don't have to physically disconnect them. You do it through the safely remove hardware feature in Windows.

[DarKStar]

I've actually heard that running in AHCI can cause some problems with some heavily copy protected games that have problems with SCSI devices present......and it being slower in some instances, I have never run in AHCI mode, always run in good old IDE mode. I would have to integrate the SATA drivers to my windows install discs.

[ZZLEE]

ASUS sells a addin USB3 card. USB 3 is 10 times faster than USB2. sata is even faster.

[Zero82z]

Originally Posted by DarKStar

I've actually heard that running in AHCI can cause some problems with some heavily copy protected games that have problems with SCSI devices present......and it being slower in some instances, I have never run in AHCI mode, always run in good old IDE mode. I would have to integrate the SATA drivers to my windows install discs.

Well, I can't say for certain that you won't run into problems, but I can tell you that I've never had a problem running any games while using my SATA devices in AHCI mode, and I have a lot of games.

[DarKStar]

Aren't there problems with some copy protected titles, when there is a SCSI device found ?

I remember the UBISOFT forums full of complaints.

[Zero82z]

I don't know. All I can say is that I've never encountered such a problem, and I own quite a few Ubisoft games including several that use their new DRM system.