Ableton Forum

So I've got this external 2TB hard drive with a bunch of samples I use with Ableton. Problem is, whenever I want to audition new samples on that drive, it's usually been enough time for the drive to spin down. Typically I have to wait for it to spin up before I audition new samples. This gets very annoying...

Any ideas on how to fix this?

I've tried this "Hard Disk Sentinel" thing and set it up to ping the drive continuously, but that didn't solve the problem.
http://www.hdsentinel.com/

Come to think of it, if Ableton had a "keep external hard drive alive" feature, that would be pretty sweet... or maybe there's an simpler solution I'm just not aware of...

Bumpin' so I can watch this discussion.
I'm also keen to know of a non-invasive solution for my own set up.

What type of drive is it?

The spindown will be in the HDD firmware which will use some kind of monitoring to tell when it's not needed.

If the utility you have doesn't do the trick the only thing I can suggest is to first find out how long it takes to spin down (5 minutes for example) then create a simple script (could use AutoIT to make it) that writes a blank file and then deletes it from the disk every 4 minutes. That should keep it kicking. You could then also use AutoIT to create a launcher that loads Live and the script for the HDD.

If you are not up to speed with AutoIT or haven't a clue where to start I could help put something together. Be interesting what works.

audiofile wrote:So I've got this external 2TB hard drive with a bunch of samples I use with Ableton. Problem is, whenever I want to audition new samples on that drive, it's usually been enough time for the drive to spin down. Typically I have to wait for it to spin up before I audition new samples. This gets very annoying...

Any ideas on how to fix this?

I've tried this "Hard Disk Sentinel" thing and set it up to ping the drive continuously, but that didn't solve the problem.
http://www.hdsentinel.com/

Come to think of it, if Ableton had a "keep external hard drive alive" feature, that would be pretty sweet... or maybe there's an simpler solution I'm just not aware of...

What model, brand is your external 2tb driv3?

I used to have this issue as well, and it drove me nuts. Recently upgraded to USB3 drives, and now I can access or eject them from full sleep state in 1-2 seconds. Huge difference. Much faster transfers too is nice, but this not needing to wait for an external to wake was the most noticeable difference for me.

jestermgee wrote:What type of drive is it?

The spindown will be in the HDD firmware which will use some kind of monitoring to tell when it's not needed.

If the utility you have doesn't do the trick the only thing I can suggest is to first find out how long it takes to spin down (5 minutes for example) then create a simple script (could use AutoIT to make it) that writes a blank file and then deletes it from the disk every 4 minutes. That should keep it kicking. You could then also use AutoIT to create a launcher that loads Live and the script for the HDD.

If you are not up to speed with AutoIT or haven't a clue where to start I could help put something together. Be interesting what works.

Thanks all for the input. I remember looking into this a while back and heard about the "script" solution. I was thinking there might be a simpler solution but perhaps not. AutoIT sounds interesting, will check it out.

I have this drive: http://www.planex.co.jp/product/drive/pl-35stu3-2tb/. Nothing special, and looks like no HD utilities from the mfr. Also, I have to connect via USB2 since that's all I have available.

Ableton, now is your chance to differentiate and add a useful feature

Is it possible you can find out what kind of drive is in the caddy?

Some manufacturers offer a utility to disable power saving.

jestermgee is right, this is handled by the HDD firmware, although you might want to check Windows is running in "high performance" power saving mode.

http://www.storagereview.com/how_to_sto ... th_wdidle3

So you all know, I found an easy solution here. Spent a week with it and it works consistently so far. Let's see how long this cheap hard drive lasts while spinning constantly...
http://de.virtualdj.com/forums/132943/P ... ep___.html

I still think this would optimally be handled by the DAW.

****Reposting below****

I had this annoying problem of my external HD Always going to sleep:
I disabled power control on the usb port, changed my power policy to always on and nothing helped
found out that it's a hard coded timeout on the hard drive.

Here's something that may help my PC guys keep there hard-drive alive during gigs

I wrote a simple batch file that appends to a file on the drive every 2.5 Minutes
This will keep it active.

The Script uses sleep.exe you can grab a copy from microsoft.com if you don't already have one
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... 8c4790cffd
NOTE: You only need sleep.exe so if you want to you can install on another computer then copy sleep.exe to your gigtop

place the follow text in a file on your desktop called hdalive.bat
run it and leave the dos window up and minimized during your gigs.

replace f:\ with the drive letter of your removable drive



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
@echo off
echo "Removing Old HD Alive File"
del f:\hdalivetest.txt
echo "Keeping your Media Drive F:\ Alive "
:loop
echo test >> f:\hdalivetest.txt
sleep 150
goto loop
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The batch file I use does a little more than just keep my hd alive
it:

1) Disables unwanted devices (extra soundcards, cams, networkcards)
2) Starts the HD Alive loop

Future Additions:

Start Virtual DJ


Have Fun Guys!!
DJ SMG!!