Western Digital 1 TB External Drive - Slowing my PC Down
11 replies, posted
I got a 1 TB WD Mybook drive for Christmas, which I connected to eSATA (Using a pass though adapter connected to the motherboard). For whatever reason, Windows does something where certain programs lock up until the drive spins up (It spins down to save energy), which takes about 5-7 seconds. This just caused Flash CS4 to crash, which pissed me off. I've noticed this when emptying the recycle bin and sometimes when playing L4D2.
Does Windows 7 do some sort of caching to other drives? It's the only explanation since all my applications and games are installed on the internal hard drive. I only use the Western Digital for storage, nothing else.
I know it can do ReadyBoost to external drives. Check its properties to see if it is being used for ReadyBoost.
My 1tb external does something similar, Takes ~5 seconds as I listen to the drive speeding up before it starts playing files off the external.
Had something similar in the past too, try looking for updated motherboard drivers.
Edit: also you might want to try switching to AHCI mode in your BIOS, I think this might have fixed the issue for me. Be sure to enable AHCI in Windows 7 first if you do.
i dont like WD tbh .. they were slower and louder than samsung hdds
that is any external hard drive, over 500GB
[editline]01:43PM[/editline]
auslogic defrag -> move files to center of disk
may provide some help
[QUOTE=Roast Beast;21347140]Had something similar in the past too, try looking for updated motherboard drivers.
Edit: also you might want to try switching to AHCI mode in your BIOS, I think this might have fixed the issue for me. Be sure to enable AHCI in Windows 7 first if you do.[/QUOTE]
How would I enable it in Windows?
[QUOTE=benjgvps;21351204]How would I enable it in Windows?[/QUOTE]
Here ya go: [url]http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976[/url]
Once you do that you can enable AHCI in your BIOS without BSODing.
[QUOTE=benjgvps;21338209]For whatever reason, Windows does something where certain programs lock up until the drive spins up (It spins down to save energy), which takes about 5-7 seconds.[/QUOTE]
I have this same issue. I've tried different chipset drivers as well as different AHCI settings in the bios and I've never been able to find a solution. (I've had AHCI enabled since the beginning, it's the only way to get hot-swapping to work on my motherboard)
My working solution is just to stop the drive from spinning down.
According to someones review on the Western Digital 1.5 TB HDD, windows 7's power down feature is causing problems with large HDDs, apparently when they disabled it, the problem was solved.
Link: [url]http://umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=129&bid=5&sid=53756[/url]
[QUOTE=Zeke129;21354973]I have this same issue. I've tried different chipset drivers as well as different AHCI settings in the bios and I've never been able to find a solution. (I've had AHCI enabled since the beginning, it's the only way to get hot-swapping to work on my motherboard)
My working solution is just to stop the drive from spinning down.[/QUOTE]
Sounds like a good idea, thanks, I'll try it when I get home.
You'll have to let me know how it goes benjgvps, when I get my new computer at the end of march it's got a 1TB Western Digital SATA3
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