Originally Posted by
sbm12
You can configure Windows to spin down drives as part of the power saver settings.
It still may not be the best option out there based on other issues, but the spin-down option on the drives is available.
Sure, then that computer must be on. The beauty of a NAS is that it is always on and still consume very little power, until an access is ordered.
Conceivably a laptop can be configured with Wake On LAN acting as a NAS and still draw very little power. But the wake up time will be long. I do set spin down timer on my laptops.
When I access my NAS, I still have to wait a little for it to spin up. But it is acceptable to me. There are situations where a dedicated function is better than a general purpose computer and I feel this is one of those.