NoSleepHD 2.0

Stop your external or network drive from powering down

We bet there are few vnunet.com Windows users who would consider the Apple Time Capsule as a device for their network. The thing is, it’s fantastic. Not only does it act as a router distributing your broadband using 802.11n wireless through your home, but you can connect devices such as your printer directly to the Capsule. This means your printer is accessible to any device on your network.

However, the best part is that is a standalone network-based hard drive that’s accessible by any Windows or Mac machine connected to your network. You can allow multiple people to access and store content on the drive, which means it’s an ideal storage point for media that needs to be accessed from every workstation. Better still, with the latest firmwire you should be able to access this networked Time Capsule on the Internet, from any location, when you have a MobileMe account (both Windows and Mac).

But it can be frustrating, too. It will power down frequently. Too frequently. This means you have to keep waiting for it to power back up if you don’t use the drive after, say, a couple of minutes. This is not configurable, so you can’t turn this option off, either.

NoSleepHD is a simple tool that keeps writing a blank file to your drive at pre-configured intervals, stopping your drive from powering down. This means that it’s instantly accessible whilst you are using your PC. If you power down your PC, your external drive will power down too.