Tutorial: Prevent External USB-Harddisk From Switch Off

[Kai]

Some people may occure problems with external USB-Harddisks. The external disk will switch off after 10 minutes and has to spin up again when, for example RadioDJ, wants to read the next music files. In the worst case it takes too long, RadioDJ will not find the music-file and will disable the file in its database. So, the song will not play.
Another case is, that RadioDJ will read the file, but you have up to some seconds between 2 played songs in your stream without hearing anything.

So, why is that so?

Mainly there are 2 possible reasons:
   1.   The Windows Power Management settings
   2.   The Power Management of the harddisk itself
        (To change this you have to have a special program from the drive manufacturer)

In this tutorial I will explain, how to setup the Windows Power Management in Windows 10, so that your external USB-Harddisk will not be switched into Sleep-Mode.

Set Windows Power Management to prevent switching USB Devices into Sleep Mode:

Method 1: Enable / Disable Power Saving on USB Ports

Note: Windows will clear the check box "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" when the device is unplugged from the USB port or the PC is restarted. So this method is only good for testing first.
To switch the power management permant, use method 2 below to disable USB selective suspend setting.

   1. Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type devmgmt.msc and press Enter.
   2. When the Device Manager window opens, expand the Universal Serial Bus controllers branch, then right-click the USB Root Hub device and select Properties.

See attached image 1.png

   3. Click the Power Management tab. Then just uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

See attached image 2.png

   4. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all of the USB Root Hubs on the computer.


Method 2: Enable / Disable USB Selective Suspend Setting

   1. Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type powercfg.cpl and press Enter.
   2. When the Power Options window opens, click the Change plan settings link to the right of your current power plan.

See attached image 3.png

   3. Click the "Change advanced power settings" link.

See attached image 4.png

   4. Expand "USB settings" and then expand "USB Selective suspend setting". Set it to Disabled to stop Windows from powering down any connected USB devices.

See attached image 5.png

   5. Click Apply to save your changes.

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[Vanlen]

Just saw this.

Great Reference.

Tnx