external drives slowing the OS down

Hi,

currently i am using 2 FW400 HDDs on my iMac.

With nearly every interaction with my iMac the OS starts to spin up my external drives, on after the other.
During this spin up process my system is not usable, nearly 4-5 seconds.

That is happening during most actions like accessing spotlight for program launching, downloading a file and so opening a fiel browser, starting my browser etc etc.

I just want the os to spin up the drives ONLY if accessing the drive itself, not during accessing the internal drive, opening file chooser dialogs etc.

Any tips on that problem ?

Yes. Change your Energy Saver settings so that those drives don't spin down anymore.

With some drives, this is a firmware thing -- if that's the case, you'll just have to get used to it, as that can't be defeated.

And yes, anytime you're asking the Mac to do something that could *possibly* involve needing those external drives, they'll be checked to see if they're still mounted.

I know the spin down option... but running all the time is not an option for me. mostly due to noise.

I think i will try to create a clickable apple script do mount/umount it i can not teach the os to only "list" the hdd, not access it