NAS drive has major latency when used in desktop system

[SteveGrabowski]

I bought an HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB 7200 RPM drive that was on sale, but for use in a desktop machine. I guess I should have researched it more, as being optimized for power saving this drive has some really bad latency. As in I pause a video, come back 20 minutes later to it, and it takes a few seconds to play again. Or the first time I access the drive after booting (it's not my boot drive, I have an SSD for that) Windows Explorer hangs for a couple of seconds when I try to access it. The drive seems healthy according to Crystal Disk Info.

Right now in Crystal Disk Info the Advanced Power Management setting for this drive is for Minimum Power. If I turn this up a little towards the Performance end in Crystal Disk Info will it behave like a standard desktop drive? For instance, my Desktop Seagate 1TB has its APM setting halfway between Minimum Power and Performance. Crystal Disk Info also has the AAM settings grayed out, so I assume my HGST drive doesn't support AAM.

Is there any downside to putting the APM setting of my HGST drive at the same setting as my Seagate drive that was meant for desktop use? Does it kill my reliability? Or are these HGST NAS drives likely to get really hot running them like desktop drives? Is there any reason I shouldn't set Crystal Disk Info to startup with my system so it can set the APM value to treat it like a normal desktop drive?

It's already a significantly hotter drive than my others (6C difference, all have active cooling from a 200mm intake fan right in front of them), but I guess that makes sense it would be with more platters than two the 1TB drives I'm also running in the system.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yeah, it sounds like it's just spinning down when not in use. Not sure why it's running hotter than the others, but if it's under 40C it's fine.

 

[ronbo613]

I have two of that same drive used as storage in my desktop PC and have no latency issues. Runs about 32°C.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Just changing the APM setting to halfway between minimum power and max performance has gotten rid of the latency issue, at the expense of about 2C temperature. Right now it's running 37C vs my Seagate 1TB 7200RPM that runs at 29C (with a 70F ambient). I suppose I'll turn that 200mm fan up higher with summer nearing.

 

[frowertr]

They are rated to an operating temp of 60C. You are well under that.