External HD falls asleep at the wheel

Siberian

Siberian

Member
I've got an external hard drive (not SSD) on which I store all kinds of stuff. I notice when I run a media-file that when the file has been running for a while, it hangs for a few seconds while the drive spins up to resume play. I'm not into how these drives work, but as the heading says it reminds me of a driver falling asleep at the wheel. Why does it even go to sleep while the file is running? It's not a big thing, but it's quite annoying when it happens. Can something be done about it?
 
Try this: Control Panel > Power Options > Change Advanced Power Settings > USB Settings > USB selective suspend setting -> set to "Disabled"
 
Basically, the OS is sending a suspend signal to the USB device when it thinks it has been inactive long enough, and the drive is deciding to spin down to conserve power.
 
As a side note it can also do this to your primary drive, usually worth disabling as well to eliminate the second or two of hang when resuming operation after sitting for a while.
 
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