Long pause after exiting a game the very first time I load up a new version of my build. Weird error!

[TPR]

This is something new that has just started happening on the build I'm working on. Anytime I do a new update to my build (new SD card & hard drive - I'm using a 2tb hard drive for storage) the very first time I exit out of a game, it hangs for about 30-40 seconds, I can see the hard drive start blinking as soon as I hit exit, and then emulationstation loads.

If I restart the Pi this never happens again.

It clearly looks like the hard drive is doing "something" when I hit exit, but any idea as to what it has just started doing on the first exist of an update to my build?

I've checked the runcommand log and the es_log.txt and I can't find anything out of the ordinary. Is there another log I could try looking in?

It's just an odd thing to have started happening out of the blue and I want to make sure it's not corrupting anything else along the way.

Thank you.

Pi Model or other hardware: (B, B+, 2 B, 3, X86 PC etc..) - Pi4
Power Supply used: (If using a Pi) - Official Power Supply
Built From: Scratch
USB Devices connected: Controller, Mouse, Keyboard. 2tb hard drive.
Controller used: 8Bitdo Retro Receiver
How to replicate the problem: