Cutting power to SATA HDD to save heat and energy

[Nominal Animal]

In Linux, the kernel correctly resets the drive from all sleepy modes automatically, so it was never a problem.  That is, I've never needed to "wake up" a SATA drive.

I'm not sure I understand but precisely what I do not want is the OS waking the drive automatically because it is doing some internal housekeeping.

Ah, I misunderstood.  But yes, in Linux, assuming you can spend the effort to learn and control the system, you can control such housekeeping.
Aside from delayed writeback (which itself is configurable, typically on the order of few seconds to half a minute; and can be forced to be done immediately via the sync command, and monitored via e.g. /proc/meminfo), the kernel doesn't do any such housekeeping, only running services do.

Indexing services (like the one for the locate database) and smart daemon (for running drive self tests and scrubbing the drives at low priority at specific intervals to detect data degradation early) are typical services that could trigger an unexpected (non-human-user-caused spinup), but their intervals can be configured, and the services (temporarily or permanently) disabled and re-enabled with a single command.

Of course, all that only if you can spend the time to learn to do all that without too much cognitive load, so it becomes routine.  Not all have that sort of time to spend just to enhance their control of their workstation.

I am not sure what kind of housekeeping tasks various Windows versions do, nor which ones are configurable to sufficient degree.

[nctnico]

Having the drive report 53°C indicates you have insufficient airflow.

A lot of computer cases are really bad for this. They put so much emphasis on getting air to flow across the CPU and GPU, that they completely ignore the rest of the case. If there are alternative places to mount the disks, try them. They can vary enormously in their cooling flows.

I fully agree. Back in the old days, I used to mill slots in the 5.25" bay covers to get more airflow to the hard drives.

[amyk]

I haven't seen this mentioned much by others on the Internet, but a bit of thermal paste between the hard drive and the case can help reduce temperatures too - the computer case is a huge mass of metal and can serve as a decent heatsink, provided the drive is in good contact with it. Those who use poorly conducting rubber mounts make their drives hotter instead, and can even make them fail more quickly as HDDs are designed to be solidly mounted for damping instead of being allowed to vibrate freely.

[soldar]

I have been playing around with different options. As several have said, improving refrigeration air flow is the best option but the case does not lend itself. If I hang the drive outside and put a fan blowing air then it is OK.  I am not inclined to spend much effort modifying the case so I really do not have a good solution. As it is a secondary drive which I seldom use, for now I will have it with the power switch disconnected and only connect it when I need it.

I think the more permanent solution will be to replace it with an SSD in the future, when I have a good opportunity.

[DiTBho]

you could consider an external hdd case.
With its air coolers, air-flow, sleds, etc.
Connected e.g. via eSATA.

That's how I do manage my storage.

[soldar]

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you could consider an external hdd case.
With its air coolers, air-flow, sleds, etc.
Connected e.g. via eSATA.

That's how I do manage my storage.

I think I'd rather just buy a new SSD drive.