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Let me start by listing what does not work:

Windows power options, disabling indexing for the drive or disabling the page file.

There’s a similar question here: How to forcibly disable (spin down) an internal Hard Drive (Windows 10 v1903)

But it relates to internal drives and the updated version of RevoSleep utility seems to work in that case.

Is there any way to permanently spin down external drives without just turning them off via a hardware switch?

Addressing the comments:

@Tetsujin: This isn't true for any of the external drives I've owned. They do spin down but get woken up after just a couple minutes.

@spikey_richie: Ejecting does work but it needs a power cycle or replug to get the drive to show up again.

@Moab: Windows power settings don't work consistently.

Emerson
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For posterity:

Ejecting the drive does permanently spin it down (like spikey_richie suggested).

You can then un-eject the drive by twice (!) disabling and enabling the USB Mass Storage Device via device manager (How do I get Windows to re-attach a USB device without having to plug it in again?).

Emerson
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