Hard Drive issue with Lightroom Classic

[Jim B (MSP)]

I am running a Dell Gaming laptop pc on Win 11.

About a year or so ago I bought an external WD-Black 8TB HDD, USB 3.0

I was hoping to use it for real time storage of some of my older photos.

However, it's start up time is extremely long, perhaps 5-10 sec or so, and it doesn't seem to keep itself active or available for any decent period of time.

The end result is I have to wait a long time for the drive to restart when ever I want LR to search through my catalog for a photo, or even when I simply want to import a photo from somewhere else. It is even slow for Disk Manager to access it cold. Thus, I tend to leave it unplugged until I want a file from it.

I also have a WD 6 TB "internal drive" plugged into a external power supply which only takes a sec or two to come up.

SO - what can I do with the WD Black 8TB drive? I am tempted to just turn it into a reliable backup drive and buy another WD 6TB with an external power supply /USB connection.

 

[skyglider]

I am running a Dell Gaming laptop pc on Win 11.

About a year or so ago I bought an external WD-Black 8TB HDD, USB 3.0

I was hoping to use it for real time storage of some of my older photos.

However, it's start up time is extremely long, perhaps 5-10 sec or so, and it doesn't seem to keep itself active or available for any decent period of time.

The end result is I have to wait a long time for the drive to restart when ever I want LR to search through my catalog for a photo, or even when I simply want to import a photo from somewhere else. It is even slow for Disk Manager to access it cold. Thus, I tend to leave it unplugged until I want a file from it.

I also have a WD 6 TB "internal drive" plugged into a external power supply which only takes a sec or two to come up.

SO - what can I do with the WD Black 8TB drive? I am tempted to just turn it into a reliable backup drive and buy another WD 6TB with an external power supply /USB connection.

If you haven't already, go through your windows advanced power options and turn off sleep for your drives.

Also go to Device Manager and turn off "All the computer to turn off this device to save power".

 

[Jim B (MSP)]

If you haven't already, go through your windows advanced power options and turn off sleep for your drives.

I have a WIn 11 Home. This advanced power option does not seem to exist. All I can find relates to the Screen

Also go to Device Manager and turn off "All the computer to turn off this device to save power".

No such option under the WD HDD.

These sound good, though.

I may check the BIOS

 

[jpegman]

I have a WIn 11 Home. This advanced power option does not seem to exist. All I can find relates to the Screen

No such option under the WD HDD.

These sound good, though.

I may check the BIOS

Check out Controlling USB sleeping settings in Win 11

Jpegman

 

[Jon555]

Maybe download HD Sentinel which does some analysis of SMART info and will run as a trial for a while and see what that thinks. Also as suggested stop the drive spinning down.

 

[Jim B (MSP)]

Following the thoughts posted by everybody, I may have found a solution, though in a different (but similar) spot.

In the Control Panel, I went to Hardware and Sound, then Power Options, then edit Plan settings.

There I found Change advanced settings.

One was a Hard disk, which had a "turn off hard disk after "

The Plugged in option was set for 1 min.

I reset it for 10 min which sounded good for my situation. If not, I know where to go to increase it.

Thanks to all who answered.

 

[Jim B (MSP)]

Following the thoughts posted by everybody, I may have found a solution, though in a different (but similar) spot.

In the Control Panel, I went to Hardware and Sound, then Power Options, then edit Plan settings.

There I found Change advanced settings.

One was a Hard disk, which had a "turn off hard disk after "

The Plugged in option was set for 1 min.

I reset it for 10 min which sounded good for my situation. If not, I know where to go to increase it.

Thanks to all who answered.

Well, that solution failed; monitoring with Windows File Explorer

HD still turns off after 1 min.

It seems to better, but not the full time, using Lightroom Classic in the Library mode.

--
Jim
"It's all about the light"

 

[Jim B (MSP)]

Following the thoughts posted by everybody, I may have found a solution, though in a different (but similar) spot.

In the Control Panel, I went to Hardware and Sound, then Power Options, then edit Plan settings.

There I found Change advanced settings.

One was a Hard disk, which had a "turn off hard disk after "

The Plugged in option was set for 1 min.

I reset it for 10 min which sounded good for my situation. If not, I know where to go to increase it.

Thanks to all who answered.

Well, that solution failed; monitoring with Windows File Explorer

HD still turns off after 1 min.

It seems to better, but not the full time, using Lightroom Classic in the Library mode.

I readjusted the "turn off HD" to Never

That seems to work.

Apparently the ability to keep track of HD run time in this Windows version is compromised.