Can you turn off a HDD so it does not use up energy?

[anotherwindowsuser]

Hi,

We just had a heatwave in the UK and whilst I didnt need to use one of the HDD on my computer as it was running off a SSD, I was annoyed to feel it chucking off heat, is it possible to turn off a HDD electronically rather than prat about unplugging it? I realise unplugging it is minimal effort, but just wondered if there was a way to do it without taking the casing off. Thanks in advance.

 

[Neemobeer]

You can disable it with devcon which should cause it to spin down. I don't believe you can completely power a drive down save for unpluggin it.

 

[RuskinF]

You cannot do that.
You cannot switch off the HDD without unplugging it.
You can do that in Linux I think.
Because in that there is an option to mount off the said thing.
Once you mount that thing off, the HDD stops responding and can be said to be dead temporarily.