Ableton Forum

Hi there,

I'm using a 36gb WD Raptor 10K HDD for my main HDD. Because I have everything setup in an ASUS pundit at present, there is no more room for a second HDD, so I've just started using a 300gb external USB HDD for all the Ableton set and tune storage.

Problem is whilst running ableton, the USB HDD seems to shut down after a short period and need to "kickstart" again when i need to access new samples. I've looked at all the obvious power settings and everything seems fine. Could it just be this HDD or is there anything I can do???

Thanks for your help...

Go to Device Manager, Disk Drives, policies tab, and set all drives for performance.
Then expand USB controllers, select the USB Root Hub the drive is plugged into, R-click, properties, Power Management, untick 'allow windows to annoy me by powering down this device'.
You need to make both changes for best results.
Hope this helps.

Some external drives will shut down after a few minutes of activity no matter what settings you change in Windows or OSX. My Seagate external does this, and yes it's really annoying.