Hdparm: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hdparm
E.g:
hdparm -B 127 /dev/sda
I know it's archwiki, but it's the same on every distro
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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Wow, this question takes me back to like the 00's when laptops had battery life measured in minutes.
Spin down when not in use is normally default behaviour for most systems already, you don't need to do anything.
Don't do that
Why?
Creates a bunch of extra wear on the drives. They'll die very fast. Keep them spinning.
Seriously, I don’t know if this is precisely accurate but definitely don’t spin down. Data errors, software problems if it has to wait for spin up and then something experiences a timeout.
I’ve had some drives spinning for like twenty years without any problems.
This is what I would think instinctively too, but still asked as I did not know if my instincts are correct. It's like starting and stopping the car engine on every traffic light...
Nah engines are fine since they don't have enough time to cool down at a stop light. The oil mostly stays put over that short amount of time.
You can use hdparm with the -S parameter to set the standby/spindown time for a hard drive.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hdparm#Power_management_configuration
umount maybe
Correct answer.
After setting the spin down timer using hdparm, unmount the drive and it will spin down accordingly.
This also makes sure you are not spinning down drives just for a few minutes of rest.
Now just if my SSD were not heating itself to 40℃ when at its lowest power mode when unmounted...
My external HDD automatically does this regardless of OS, it is an Orico. I have 2 of them with a 2tb HDD in one and a 8tb in another. These are only used for playback and I believe the spin down after 30 sec of no activity
https://github.com/adelolmo/hd-idle
I use hd-idle for my home server. As mentioned elsewhere, you do have to be careful spinning up/down disks frequently. If you're using a Linux Mint, that tells me this is a desktop, so you probably shouldn't do it at all. My server is idle for hours at a time though, so it makes sense in this case. I believe hd-idle defaults to spinning down after ten minutes of idle time.