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I've set "Turn off hard disk after" value in the Power Options. But when I open my HDD in the File Explorer it happens instantly that's why I'm not sure if it's actually on or off at the moment. Please tell me if it's possible to somehow figure it out.

P.S. Some people think that's a bad idea to shut down HDDs because it'll trash their heads. My HDD is used only from time to time during the backups while my PC is turned on most of the time.

Kosh
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  • ["Turn off hard disk after: Never" Is this a bad idea?](https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/924462-turn-off-hard-disk-after-never-is-this-a-bad-idea) – Jorge Luiz May 23 '20 at 23:49
  • See answer by Lunatik and Zak B>>>>>https://superuser.com/questions/400213/see-if-hdd-is-in-sleep-mode-for-windows – Moab May 23 '20 at 23:58
  • With respect to heads, most drives park the heads when powered off to prevent damage. Set your drive to power off after inactive for some time. Wait. You should be able to hear that it spins down. – John May 24 '20 at 01:52

1 Answers1

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Run the following command in the Powershell:

get-disk

Look at the OperationalStatus column

enter image description here

References:

Jorge Luiz
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  • Which output column shows it is powered off? – Moab May 24 '20 at 00:18
  • *OperationalStatus* column – Jorge Luiz May 24 '20 at 00:21
  • Add that to your answer please. Maybe a screenshot if you can. – Moab May 24 '20 at 00:21
  • Ir seems to me that a disk could be online but "off" which is why it is so instantly available. – John May 24 '20 at 01:48
  • There is also caching. Anything you've been using is in memory. Therefore continuing a task the data will come from the cache so will be instant. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/file-caching – Mark May 24 '20 at 07:23