10.8.5 on MacPro5,1 - disabling "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" doesn't work any more

I have always had "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" disabled in the Energy Saver section of System Preferences, but since upgrading to 10.8.5 this setting is no longer obeyed... I can distinctly hear the sound of my hard drives winding down and winding back up *very* often, and toggling the setting has no effect...
There's other threads about hard disk sleep issues with 10.8.5 and it seems this is another one to add to the list... Definitely needs to be addressed because my hard drives are powering up & down quite a lot even when the system is sitting idle, which is gonna create a lot of unnecessary mechanical wear on those drives...

Unfortunately, this is a known bug that Apple is working on.
I submitted feedback regarding this issue and surprisingly received a couple of phone calls from Apple support about this issue. I ran through several questions with the tech and advised him that I temporarily resolved the issue by restoring from a saved 10.8.4 installation. So, for the moment, everything is working as it should. The Apple tech asked if I would be willing to re-install 10.8.5 and provide some logs, but I declined since everything is back to normal now.
As a side note, it has been said on other forums, the issue can be temporarily "fixed" by setting your monitor to never go to sleep and stay on, which ironically causes your hard disks to "never" sleep either. I also provided this bit of info to the Apple tech in hopes of resolving this.

Similar Messages

Put hard disk to sleep when possible

Hi, is there any other reason to do this besides saving energy? Does it extend the life of the disk? Or shorten it for that matter with the extra spin-ups/downs?
Thanks,
Dave

Hard drives have a recommended maximum number of Start/Stop Cycles. For the Raptor it's 20,000. Some other drives are rated at 50,000.

Putting Hard Disks to Sleep?

Is there any way to lengthen the time the hard drives are put to sleep once I've activated "put hard disks to sleep when possible"? The default seems to put them to sleep within minutes, and I'd like to change it to one hour if possible.
Thanks!

Why bother in a desktop machine? Sleeping the drives is mainly a power saving feature mostly for laptops. If you uncheck the box in Energy Saver it defaults to 180 minutes of idle time. If you want an hour idle, then why not just set Energy Saver to put the computer to sleep after one hour of idle time?

Ipone 4s display suddenly doesn't work any more. i can't even unlock it as it put the numbers itself. and if i am lucky to unlock it opens apps and does everything whenever my finger comes near without even touching it. can anyone help?

ipone 4s display suddenly doesn't work any more. most of the time i can't even unlock my iphone as it puts the numbers itself. and if i am lucky to unlock it opens apps and does everything else whenever my finger comes near the display without even touching it. I did reset and also updated my operating system. But the problem stills shows up... can anyone help please?

Contact iTunes Customer Service and request assistance
Use this Link > Apple Support iTunes Store Contact

If I set my iMac not to sleep, but set hard drives to sleep when possible will they sleep?

If I set my iMac to never sleep, but my Hard Drives to sleep when possible why don't they sleep?

They don't sleep because your Mac is using them (as your Mac is turned on). If they go to sleep, you may damage the external drives because your Mac doesn't unmount the drives first

QuickTime movies cannot display properly, refresh doesn't work propely for html files on hard disk, opening a new tab doesn't work

Hi!
I have tried Firefox V4 (but have since reused V3.6.16). The following problems were found:
a. Cannot display the controls used for QuickTime movies.
b. The refresh button doesn't function at all if the html files reside on the hard disk. I do this because I need to test the appearance of the web page before uploading to the server.
This problem also exists for v3.6.14 to v3.6.16
c. When opening a new tab, it doesn't work. Instead, it will open another instance of the browser. By right, it has to open the web page on the same instance of the browser.
This is my feedback.
Thanks!!!!! :)

I had some advice to try recording QT audio and adding to the slide. Now, when recording to Quicktime, it does embed it, but in recording the presentation, it either doubles up the audio giving a strange echo or does the same thing if you ever edit the presentation.
The problem Keynote has is that the sound and image content are not locked together which causes out of sync errors. This is why many users choose video editing applications when using sound in the presentations, as they have both image and audio tracks to sync sound properly together.
Start a new presentation to remove the previous sound recording, Keynote is holding onto the other sound files.
Add the graphic items to each slide and one sound file to each slide for the voice over
1 - In Inspector > Transitions; use start transitions automatically and set each transitions delay to the duration of the individual sound file.
2 - In QT export, set Fixed Timing and delete the value in the duration box, QT will then use the custom timings for each individual slide.
This procedure does work exactly as needed, Iv used this for nearly 6 years using 4 different versions of Keynote.

HT4927 When I open the Iphoto library in the TM drive i get the Iphoto library on my mac hard disk, so the description above doesn,t work.

Please describe also what you mean with "Restore button"

Sorry I solved the problem. I entered the time machine drive via desk board instead of the dash board.

How to prevent hard disks from sleeping

Hello
I have recently installed a SSD for system drive in my machine, and now realise what a bottle neck the old, standard hard disk had been. Booting is now extremely fast, as is opening applications. This speed has alerted me to another problem. My hard disks keep falling asleep, which slows down operantion of the machine significantly. For instance, to log into this forum, I used 1Password. When selecting the log in menu item from 1Password, there was several seconds delay before one of the hard disk (I have four inside the machine, one external Drobo, and one external eSata drive) came alive. When it had, Safari could take me into the site. There constant delays like this when I use Safari, for example. These delays are very frustrating, so I want to keep all my disks awake constantly.
Thing tried so far:
The worst problem was the Drobo, because it has three disks inside that wake up one after the other, a very slow process, and the Drobo is slow in itself. So I installed a little script that does a touch command every five minutes, to prevent the Drobo from sleeping. It seems this has helped. But the other disks keep falling asleep all the time. I have set Cocktail to prevent all disks from sleeping - no effect. The Energy Computer Sleep setting is set to Never.
Any ideas will be much appreciated. This sleep issue keeps bugging my all day long.

In the Energy Saver system pref, are any of the boxes checked?
If it were me, I guess I'd try clicking the 'restore defaults' button in Energy Saver, restart the computer, and then go back into the Energy Saver and set the computer sleep to either 3 hours or never, and uncheck the 'put hard disks to sleep when possible' box. You might try 3 hours instead of never and see if that makes a difference.

"Put harddisks to sleep when possible" vs longer HDD life?

Something I've been pondering:
I can save battery by telling the computer to put the harddisk to sleep when possible, but am I sacrificing HDD life span by spinning it up and down often?

I doubt that you are making much of a difference in either respect. It probably takes less energy to keep an already spinning disc spinning than it does to start it spinning again, if the interval is short. If it's longer, putting the disk to sleep probably does save a little energy, and the strain on the drive's mechanical parts will be less than if it's spinning down and back up again every five minutes.

"put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" setting - YES or NO?

I've searched.... but I can't find a definitive answer.
Is it a bad idea to NOT "sleep" my hard disk(s)?
(i.e. - uncheck the "hard disk(s) sleep" option)
I have a new macbook and I'm running Time Machine on an external (powered) drive. I have my computer set to "put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" but I'm having problems with "improper device removal" warnings when I wake up the macbook. I would hate to shorten the life of my drives - but potentially corrupted
files on my Time Machine disk kind of defeats the purpose of back ups.
I realize that "sleeping" conserves battery life - but when the macbook is plugged in, what should I do?
thanks

the external hard drive is unmounting itself and I receive the "improper removal" warning. I've seen similar posts in the Time Machine discussions. It seems that it might be a sleep related issue. Macbook wakes - but doesn't wake external?
(Although one time it unmounted while the macbook wasn't sleeping)
At first I thought it was because the drive was bus powered -so I switched to a powered drive. Problem still happened - so I removed the drive from my usb hub and plugged straight into macbook usb port... but the problem is still occuring.
(Also.... wondering if verifying my back up drive will assure me that no data corruption occurred with improper removal...of should I do another complete backup?) thanks

"Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible": How to Exempt One Drive?

I have a Mac Pro with 4 internal hard drives, 2 external hard drives, the built-in SuperDrive, and a new Pioneer BDR-205 internal Blu-ray drive. Here's the problem: If the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" option is enabled, when the system puts the BDR-205 to sleep, it will never wake up unless the computer is shut down and restarted. (Basically, it disappears from the System Profiler and can no longer be accessed.)
If I turn off the Energy Saver "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" option, then the BDR-205 never has a problem -- but then none of my other drives ever go to sleep, either.
Does anyone know of a way to exempt a specific drive (or drives) from being put to sleep by the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" feature? I've found where the settings for this feature are stored, in \Library\Preferences\SystemConfiguration\com.apple.PowerManagement.plist (the setting is Disk Sleep Timer -- 0 = never sleep, any other number = how many minutes before a drive is put to sleep), but I can't find where there might be some undocumented option to allow us to say, "Don't put THIS drive to sleep". It seems silly that this option is an all-or-nothing proposition.
Anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

I am having the same difficulty. A way to exempt a specific drive from sleep would be most useful.

Does "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible) work with external drive

I have an external backup drive which I use for doing daily backups. I have set an iCal alarm daily to remind me to turn the hdd on at the right time.
When Time Machine comes along in a couple weeks, I am going to be leaving this drive on all the time while I'm working on my computer but was wondering if the energy savings mode of putting the hard drive to sleep applies to external USB drives as well? Would be nice to know that when I put my computer to sleep at the end of the day that my external drive also goes to sleep. I'm not sure if this has to be a function of the external box or if OS X can shut off the drive.
Any wisdom?

You can test this very easily:
The "Put the hard disk(S) to sleep when possible" default time is 10 minutes of inactivity.
Just leave your Mac alone for 10 minutes: you should hear both drives spinning down. If the external noise was not clear enough, you can then "wake it up" by double-clicking its icon on the desktop:
If it was spun down, you'll have to wait a couple of seconds or so, with the spinning colored beachball, while it is spinning up again.
Note that if you're performing a task that uses only you Mac's internal HD, the external should spin down while you're using your Mac. Then if double-clicking its icon shows the colored spinning beachball stalling, it's very clear it goes to sleep as intended.
Most of the external hard drives should be able to spin down, at least all my LaCie do it with no problem.

My iPod's headphone jack isn't working anymore, when i put my headphones in , the left l, My iPod's headphone jack isn't working anymore, when i put my headphones in , the left earphone doesn't work. Does anyone know if this can be fixed ?

My iPod nano 3rd generation headphone jack isn't working anymore, when i put my headphones in , the left earphone doesn't work. Does anyone know if this can be fixed ?

Hi Mr.Acevedo329!
I have an article here for you that can help you troubleshoot the issues you are experiencing. That article can be found right here:
iPod troubleshooting basics and service FAQ
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1382
Specifically, you will want to take note of this section:
The headphones don't work
If your iPod's headphones don't work or have static or garbled audio, try connecting them to any other 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack, like the one on your computer. If the issue with the headphones persists, replace them. For an iPod under warranty, you can order a replacement online. Otherwise, check out the cool headphones at the Apple Online Store. If the issue appears to be with the iPod, try resetting it. If that doesn't work, then restore iPod with the latest iPod software using iTunes 7 or later.
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Have a good one!
-Braden

I just made two separate copies on external hardrives of all my Lightroom 4 and 5 work. I also cleared ecerything in my recycle bin to make room on the hard drive. Now, when I go to work in Lightroom 5, I have no pictures. I did check the back-ups, and al

I just made two separate copies on external hardrives of all my Lightroom 4 and 5 work. I also cleared everything in my recycle bin to make room on the hard drive. Now, when I go to work in Lightroom 5, I have no pictures. I did check the back-ups, and all the pictures are there, however with a ? on every photo. What do I do to get my photos back into my original Lightroom 5 without the ? marks? Thanks in advance for any help. Al

Now, when I go to work in Lightroom 5, I have no pictures.
Could you provide more details? Is this the copy of your catalog, or the original catalog? Are you sure you didn't accidentally open some other catalog? If you try the catalogs under File->Open Recent, do you find your photos?
I did check the back-ups, and all the pictures are there, however with a ? on every photo. What do I do to get my photos back into my original Lightroom 5 without the ? marks?
Backups will work properly if you restore the catalog file and the photos to their ORIGINAL locations.

I had a trouble with my lap top and had to format hard disk and install all soft ware again. could any body tell me how to transfer the application and data in my i phone back to my laptop.

I had a trouble with my lap top and had to format hard disk and install all soft ware again. could any body tell me how to transfer the application and data in my i phone back to itune.

You can't. It still thinks that your iPhone is synced with another iTunes library (the one that you had before you reformatted the hard drive.

10.8.5 on MacPro5,1 - disabling "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" doesn't work any more

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for