HDD slow access

Hey Dudes

When I installed Windows 7 I used a cleanly formatted hard drive with no additional partitions, it is just Windows 7 installed upon it. All my data is on seperate drives just incase I have any OS issues I never loose any data. Now when I access some of this data now, I sometimes get a 3-5second pause in whatever application im trying to access that data in and I can hear my other hard drives spinning up. Now that might not seem that odd but when I was using XP I never had any lag when accessing any other drives. Its like Windows 7 lets the other drives go to sleep if not accessed for a certain amount of time.

I run 3 HDDs internally, 5 Partitions total.

Drive 1: 200gb (Windows 7)
Drive 2: 300gb
Drive 3: 1TB (2 x 200gb Partitions, 1 x 600gb (or whatever was left))

The only difference in setup now is that I used to have XP on a 200gb partition on the 1TB drive and now Windows 7 is on a seperate drive.

My thoughts are that when I had XP on the 1TB drive, because that drive was always in use, it never took long to access the information and I must have just not noticed the access times on my other drives because I rarely access them - does that make sense?

I know that doesnt seem like much of a question but to simply it, is there anything on Windows 7 that is increasing access time to other hard drives in my system?

Thanks

Scott

// Other information you may want is that all my hard drives are 7,200RPM and all SATA. No Raid arrays either. They are all direct into my motherboard which is a TPower i45. //

Check your power options that the drives aren't spinning down because of non-usage. This is normal but might be causing a delay you're not used to. Run in high performance mode and see if it affects your perceptions.

Google HDTune and post a benchmark. I'll let ya know if I think it's "normal" results.

Thats my 1TB benchmark. I didnt do anything on the PC when it was running. All that was open was Paint and the applcation itself. I had windows say about a critical temp (at 55degrees) for the drive. That I have never had before...

I have just changed the power settings from turning my HDDs off after 20mins idle to never turning off. Is this not wise as im guessing 20mins is a standard thing that everyone deals with?

HDTune looks good. It's fine to leave the hard drives always running. You have to consider that your electricity bill will be slightly higher because of it. Not huge difference, but slight.

My advice is to make it like an hour or so. This way if you roam around your house and come back like a half hour later, they are still running. If you go to stores and out for day, they will power down.

It's all up to you my friend.

Im going to take your suggestion and make it 1hr, it seems like a good time scale. Im living at uni at the moment so they pay my bills (apart from the £3200 im paying them for accomadation) so I want to get my moneys worth!!

Thank you very much for your advice