E6500 and External eSATA HDD

I have a Latitude E6500 (win xp pro) and the E-Port docking station. I have a Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme 1TB external HDD connected via eSATA to the docking station.

I notice that when the external drive wakes up from sleep mode, typically because of an operation that requires the drive - opening the file explorer, selecting the "turn off the computer" option, etc., the system freezes until the drive powers up (a few seconds). Is this normal? Other than disabling sleep mode, is there a way to eliminate the lag?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

FWIW, both of my desktops behave the same way when hot-swapping SATA/eSATA devices. I don't have the AHCI drivers installed on my E6400 to test it there, but I've always thought that this behavior was normal. SATA is naturally more finicky with hot-swapping than USB?