Windows comes with a setting that will automatically turn off the hard disk after a certain period of inactivity. This setting is helpful when you want to save energy and extend your device’s battery life. One downside of this setting is that while the hard disk drive is turned off, apps and other services that need access to the disk will encounter a slight delay because the disk will have to leave its idle state to resume operation. If a slight delay isn’t a big deal, then you turn on this feature to serve energy and also extend your device battery life in certain situations. Below is how to change the disk idle timeout settings in Windows 11.
How to turn off the hard disk after a certain period of inactivity in Windows 11
As described above, Windows comes with a setting that will automatically turn off the hard disk after a certain period of inactivity. This setting is helpful when you want to save energy and extend your device’s battery life. Below is how to change the settings in Windows 11. Note: This feature only applies to HDDs. It does not apply to SSDs or other NVMe drives. To change this setting, open the Control Panel. When the Control Panel app opens, navigate to the Power Options category group. There, locate the Active power plan. Then click on the Change plan settings link. On the Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options -> Edit Plan Settings pane, click the Change advanced power settings link. On the Power Options pop-up window, select Hard disk to expand. Then expand Turn off hard disk after:
On battery: 10 Minutes Plugged in: 20 Minutes
Again, the changes below only apply to Hard Disk drives (HDDs). SSDs and others non-HDD drives will turn on as defined in the image below. That should do it! You can close the Settings app. Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/power-settings/disk-settings-disk-idle-timeout Conclusion: This post showed you how to change your computer hard disk drive idle timeout in Windows 11. If you find any error above or have something to add, please use the comment form below.
