How do I stop external USB hard drive from being accessed?

Viper2

Distinguished
May 12, 2011
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I would like to keep my external USB hard drive plugged into my computer at all times to make backups easy. However, I have noticed that the computer likes to access the USB hard drive automatically at certain times and that causes slowdowns. I do not want any slowdowns at all while playing games or using other applications. Therefore, how do I completely stop my computer from accessing my external USB hard drive while it is plugged in, and how do I access the external hard drive only when I want to and stop all access to it (and resulting slowdown) when I don't want to access it?

By the way, I am using Windows 7 Professional 64-bit operating system.

Any responses will be appreciated.

Thank you very much.
 

dokk2

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Jul 1, 2007
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You say that you have backup software making an image on one of your USB drives,,,??,, maybe it is accessing and updating same in real time,,I have 2 USB drives and when they are in use after the initial plugin windoze XP leaves them alone...:)