qBittorrent official forums

I'm using an SBC off of which I run qBittorrent. I noticed that the external HDD that's attached to the SBC is always on, and the drive spins non-stop. This happens only when qBittorrent is running, wether or not there are connected peers and there are ongoing transfers. Worrying that the lifespan of the HDD would be affected by this, I wanted to do something about it, so I wanted to ask you guys if you know of any settings that might mitigate disk access while nothing is read/written off it?
Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Another question with a similar goal as above: is it possible to block slow peers that download from me? (those that download under a certain speed rate, for example under 200kBps)

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The drive shutdown is just as bad for a hard-drive. Usually, these drives last 3-5 years and by that time, you can get a bigger one for the same amount of money. So don't worry about it, just use it.