micky wrote:

Corrected post

I have to make my backing up more frequent.

Right now I use a double dock, with a 3 1/2" drive. (I bought one whose
advertising said it turned off when it wasn't getting input, but
afterwards, when I tried to get the software the ad said was needed,
someone there admitted there was no software and it didnt' do it!!!**)

Is there a 3 1/2" dock that will turn off when not in use, when there is
no data coming from the PC.

I have the impression that those 2 1/4 backup drives do indeed turn off
when I'm not backing up. Do they? All of them? Any that you
recommend? Any you recommend against?

Eventually, you get the size(s) right! :-) Theu are 2.5" drives.

I use Western Digital (WD) Elements (USB) portable drives, 1TB.

These drives do 'turn off' - I assume you mean stop spinning -, BUT
when connected, Windows will often - shortly - access all connected
drives, so they spin up again. That happens for example when you go to
'This PC' in (Windows) File Explorer, because that screen shows all
connected drives, so File Explorer will re-check those. So they're
*mostly* spinned down, but not all the time.

I also have a NAS - Synology DS115j DiskStation - which *does* not
(re-)spin up when I do not use it -, but as it's a NAS, it's connected
via the network and hence not suitable for your imaging/cloning use. It
is of course suitable for file-level backup, which is the way I use it.

As to imaging (I don't (yet) clone), I use the WD Elements drives and
connect them before the image backup and disconnect them afterwards.