AEBS prevents my USB drive from spinning down

Hi all,
I thought I would share my concerns about connecting USB external drive with AirPort Extreme. I've seen several post here talking about that issue, but they didn't solve my problem.
Otherwise great product, AirPort Extreme n prevents my WD MyBook 500GB disk from spinning down when not in use. I bought that particular disc, because of its ability to go to sleep when not accessed for a period of time. It works great when connected to my MacBook via FW400 or USB 2.0, but when I use it via AiPort Disk utility and connect to AEBS the disk will not spin down, keep running and getting hot. I am concerned with that fact, because it consumes more energy and will shorten disc life (yes, it is not a server graded disc, as most of USB ones, and it was not designed to spin continously).
I read some posts about Spotlight indexing the drive, but that is not true because of three facts:
- when connected via USB 2.0 or FW400 the disc spins down.
- when I left it for two hours it was still spinning - Spotlight should have finished indexing by then right?
- even if I eject network drives from the Desktop, breaking the connection with my MB it is still spinning.
There seems to be a problem with AE itself. AEBS seem to keep the disc busy all the time or the disc thinks that's the situation.
From what I've read this is not MyBook only case. People with Lacie, Maxtor and other brands are having the same problem.
At this point I have no solution to this. I disconnected the drive and access it via FW400 only. That's a shame, because Apple advertises AirPort Extreme using USB drive connectivity as a major selling point. I think that situation is unacceptable. A disc spinning 24/7 is asking for trouble.
If someone has a solution to that problem, please share it with the forum readers, if not we will have to wait for Apple to fix this. I hope someone from Apple is reading this.
MacBook C2D Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Otherwise great product, AirPort Extreme n prevents
my WD MyBook 500GB disk from spinning down when not
in use. I bought that particular disc, because of its
ability to go to sleep when not accessed for a period
of time.
Other posts indicate you can solve this by privatizing the drive in Spotlight's preferences. I haven't tried this because I like the drive indexed--it is a shared data drive after all.
I turn the drive off manually when I'm not using it. Unfortunately, the Airport doesn't recognize the drive (or printers that I've turned off, for that matter) when I turn it back on. The only solution I've found is to restart the Airport. Any ideas on this problem?

Similar Messages

Preventing external HDs from spinning down

Anyone know of a better way of preventing my OWC external FireWire HardDrive from spinning down (and hence slowing some/most? Finder operations down) than 'Spindown fix 1.1' (http://www.index-site.com/software.html)?
TIA!

Mark,
I don't think this works on external drives, but you may want to check to see if your Mac's Disk Sleep Timer setting may have been changed. Disk Sleep Timer is one of your Mac's Power Management settings and can be found under the Power item in System Profiler. The default setting for Leopard is 180 minutes, but for Tiger it was only 10 minutes, which was quite annoying.
You can change this setting by typing the following command in Terminal:
sudo pmset disksleep ?
Replace the ? with the number of minutes you want to set and press <Return>, then when prompted, type in your password. If you use a setting of 0 (zero), the hard disks will never sleep, unless you checked "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" in the Energy Saver Control Pane.
Again, I don't know if this works with external drives, but it's worth a shot.
Keith

USB drive keeps spinning

I have 2 USB drives connected to AEBS. They are working fine. I just don't know why they keep spinning even after many hours of non use. Usually, when the drives are not connected to AEBS, they stop spinning after a certain amount of time of inactivity. I've ejected the disks and they stay on. I suppose I could turn them off, but that seams to defeat the purpose of having the drive somewhere else and not having to connect it to the computer.
Thanks for any help.
Derek

yeah this has been an issue that keeps popping up with a lot of peoples drives. some spin down, some down't it seems.
hopefully Apple can correct this with a software update that allows all drives with this feature to be able to spin down.
Probably not a solution until Apple creates one unfortunately. good luck!
I don't find it too hard to turn a drive off and on, but I understand your point.
My 500gb f a porsche lacie drive doesn't really shut itself, but it does seem like it is in fact spinning down after a certain amount of time, i can leave it on, and come back a few hours later, go to access the drive and it seems like it is coming back up, but maybe not.

External FW Drives keep spinning down

I've researched this issue on and off for a couple of months now and am not yet satisfied with what I've found so far. I have a couple of external hard drives One G-RAID 500GB and another modified G-Drive (I recently replaced the original drive an put in a new Western Digital 500GB IDE drive inside).
THE PROBLEM: Both external drives keep spinning down after about 8 to 10 mins of inactivity. Is there a way to prevent this?
Other forums say that OS X will ignore the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" setting for external drives while other suggest that this spin-down is a function handled by the firmware of actual hard disk drive. If the latter is true then I guess the question would then be which drive manufacturer makes a drive that doesn't spin down?
It's very annoying to have to to wait for the spin-up (beach ball) every time you want to save your work. Yes it's only a few seconds but when you have lots of work to do this is an annoyance you can do without.
APPLE: If you are reading, please chime in. Is it true that OS X's "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" setting doesn't work for external drives?
I've also wondered OS X is the one issuing the command that orders the external drives to spin-down. And if so, how do you turn it off?
Maybe a command in Terminal?
Thanks,
Xavier

THis is certainly a common problem with WD drives, especially, but it may apply to others as well. Do you know what brand of drive is installed in the G-Raid?
Apart from the drive itself it could also be precipitated by firmware in the bridge enclosure.
One solution to this sort of issue is to simply create an automated process that briefly accesses the drive before the 'spin down" process occurs.
You will find a page on how to do this HERE (you will obviously have to substitute the name of your own volume for the one in the article).
An easier way if you don't want to mess around at that level is to simply use a script or app to do the job.
Take a look at Keep Drive Spinning which is free, or "No Spin" which is shareware, for example.
Cheers
Rod

Drives constantly spinning down and then up again - poor hard drives!

My mac pro seems like it wants to kill my hard drives - I hear it spinning down drives and then within 60 seconds it will spin them up again. This happens over and over again.
I even have tried taking the "put drives to sleep" option off but it still happens.
1) I would LIKE to spin drives down and keep them down unless needed to save energy - can I find out why in the world the system keeps spining them up again?
2) If not, how can I keep them from spinning down at all?
Constant start/stop cycles can't be good for my system.
I've got a total of 4 drives - system drive, 2 drives in raid 1 and then a 4th drive. I have no idea which (one or more) is spinning down

You know, it sometimes helps to be specific.
Drive make, model, even firmware.
Seagate had a bunch of drives last year that would take 90 minutes to wake from sleep that drove people crazy (but seemed to be mostly or more common with iMac).
Hardware Monitor has a warning and probably something in the readme (those things you are suppose to read before installing?).
Stripped down system and minimal extras really does prove to to work better, fewer "side effects" and less trouble.
And when you do have your system installed, backup. Don't use it for anything else. I have had to resort to one of those backups more than I like now with Mac Pro. Put it on a FW400 drive and put it on a shelf.
Testing - make a list of what you add or change. Then let it run for a couple days that way before adding something else.
Zap the PRAM and reset the SMC. Run Apple Hardware Test. Maybe there is a problem - or you have a USB or FW device that interferes. Or driver.
In some ways, I think Vista and XP lets you see and control all the startupitems better.

Stop External HD from Spinning Down?

Is it possible to stop an external HD from spinning down when connected to a MBPro? It seems that the setting in the energy saver control panel have no effect on external drives. I'm using my laptop (MBPro 2.33Ghz) for music production and don't want my external drive to spin down while I'm working.
Is there any way to keep it spinning?

This may be a "feature" built into the firmware of your external drive. If so it will not be affected by your Energy Saver settings. I recently had to advise someone with a "Western Digital MyBook" spinning down to ask the manufacturer for help, but the outcome was that the only solution was the purchase of an uncrippled drive. Being in the firmware, the "feature" could not be erased or altered.
"Is it possible to stop…"
Yes, but only in what I would consider an unacceptable manner, e.g. by having a small script that constantly accesses the drive, but I would suggest that a) it should not be needed, and b) it would be highly likely to interfere with other things you were doing.
So, as a start, you should a) read any docs that came with that drive, and b) go to the relevant site and see what you can find out.
I hope that none of this applies to you, but I just thought you ought to be aware of the possibility.

2010 MBP 13" hard drive never spins down... ever.

Hi Folks,
I have searched - and even found others with a similar problem - but the threads died out without a solution, so....
I have a pretty new 2010 MBP 13" 2.4ghz with stock 250gb HDD (I think it's a Toshiba, IIRC). I noticed that the palm rests were vibrating constantly and there was noise that never went away, so I investigated. It is the hard drive under the right palm rest, which is constantly spinning. My hands feel like I just came in from mowing the lawn!
Now, I just came from ownership of a 2008 MB which also had the Core2Duo processor and which I used about the same. No new programs or new usage to speak of. Yet that hard drive was not spinning all the time; in fact, it was usually spun down and only spun up from time to time.
I do have the preference checked for "Put hard disk to sleep when possible" on both battery and AC. I downloaded iStat and I can't see any reason for it not to spin down. i.e. light use (or even with all programs closed), cool CPU, CPU 90% un-used, very few page outs (not sure which of this would affect HD though).
Still, it NEVER spins down.
It's not clicking or making any of the "I'm a hard drive about to die" type noises. It's just a constant spinning hum.
Can anyone help me with this? It's making me dislike what should be a nice upgrade from my MB and iBook. Of course I am still under warranty, but I'm 4 hours from the Apple store, and plus I just like to try to figure things out on my own if possible. Gaining understanding of how things work is a plus too
Thank you in advance for any help
Stixer
Message was edited by: Stixer

I don't know if anyone will click on this since I already marked it solved, but I will try it and then if not I'll start a new thread. Just don't want to clutter up the forum if I don't need to.
So anyway, it was stated earlier in this thread that it is not possible for the internal hard drive to spin down while the computer is turned on, and that the system pref for "put hard disk to sleep (i.e. spin down) when possible" check box could only really apply to external drives.
I'm no expert, so although I sure thought the drives in my previous Apple laptops were spun down most of the time (I'm a light user), I figured that okay, they must have just seemed like they were spinning down, and my new one must just be really noisy (even though the "noise" sounds just like my older drives did when they "spun up," but I guess they were just doing something else).
But okay, so this morning I was reading Anandtech's really great and thorough review of the new MBP's and in the maximum battery life test they did this:
+Light Web Browsing+
+Here we're simply listing to MP3s in iTunes on repeat while browsing through a series of webpages with no flash on them. Each page forwards on to the next in the series after 20 seconds.+
+The display is kept at 50% brightness, all screen savers are disabled, but *the hard drive is allowed to go to sleep if there's no disk activity*. The wireless connection is enabled and connected to a local access point less than 20 feet away. *This test represents the longest battery life you can achieve on the platform while doing minimal work. The results here are comparable to what you'd see typing a document in TextEdit or reading documents.*+
Doesn't this seem to indicate that my original understanding was correct, and that internal hard drives do have the ability to spin down under light use? It sounds like it to me. My typical usage is exactly what they are talking about above, and apparently their hard drive spins down during such use, unless I'm completely mis-understanding them. Mine also seemed to in my previous Apple laptops.
So now I'm feeling frustrated, as I hate having an issue that I can't get to the bottom of. Whether or how I can fix it or not is secondary, but I want to understand how it is supposed to work!
Thank you very much to anyone who reads through, and even more if you reply
Stixer

Creating a Mavericks USB boot drive after the horse has bolted. Can I create a bootable USB drive from my iMac after installing Mavericks without saving the Install OS X Mavericks.app file? Do I need to re- download the whole 5.29 Gb again?

Creating a Mavericks USB boot drive after the horse has bolted. Can I create a bootable USB drive from my iMac after installing Mavericks without saving the Install OS X Mavericks.app file? Do I need to re- download the whole 5.29 Gb from the App Store again? My problem is my 4Gb/month allowance on a 12 month contract. I cannot purchase a data block from my ISP and although my speed is theoretically slowed to 64k after reaching my 4Gb, it actually ceases to download in reality.

HI tasclix, it depends what you mean by an OS X boot drive.
If you want a recovery disk from which you can reinstall (by re-downloading) or recover from a time machine backup, then nbar is correct.
If, however, you want to boot and run the OS X installer from the USB drive (so that you don't need to download again), then you will need a copy of "Install OS X Mavericks.app"; see this article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5856
Before downloading again, search your system to see if the installer is still there - it's usually in the /Applications folder unless it has been deleted, but check your whole system for it anyway, you never know, you might still have it somewhere.
Message was edited by: SilverSkyRat

Create a bootable USB drive from an ISO

Hi everyone,
I want to create a bootable USB drive from e.g. a Linux ISO. On Windows, there are tools like UNetBootin (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/) for that. Is there s.th. similar on Mac?
Thanks in advance

Hi. The easiest way to do what you want to do is to scan it for restore, and then use the restore from disk image tool to write it to an external disk. All of this can be done with disk utility.
First you will want to drag the ISO image into the Disk Utility sidebar. Then you select the disk image (in disk utility) and click the Convert button in the top toolbar. I recommend using the "read only" image format and you'll have to add the extension .dmg to the file. When the conversion is done, the new image will appear in the sidebar. Select that image and then go to the Images menu and select Scan For Restore. You may be prompted for your administrator password. When the scan is done, connect your external disk. Then select the volume in Disk Utility (the thing with the name of your disk, not the model number), go to the Restore tab and drag the volume into the Destination field. Now you can drag the DMG disk image into the Source field and click Restore. You may want to check Erase Destination.
That should do it, good luck!
Jeremy A
Tekserve Intern

How to prevent external drive from spinning up? Or, fastest quiet drive on spin up?

My external drive insists on spinning up often without reason, often for open/save dialog boxes. The spin up takes time and the computer is inoperable until it completes the spin up. As a fast touch typist, who often hits command-s to save documents in Word, this is really a nuisance. This happens with a USB and Firewire external drives. It seems to be a feature within the OS itself--and likely some other programs in the background--that want to access drives.
Is there any way of turning this behavior off? For example, telling the OS to spin up the external hard drive only for a specific application (Carbon Copy Cloner). So far, the only solution I've come up with is to eject the external drives, which isn't much of a solution if one wants automatic back ups!
Now, if there is no way of turning this off, are there drives that spin up quickly? This USB drive I have takes forever compared to the Firewire one, which also takes too long. At the same time, though, the USB drive has the blessing of running silently whereas the various Firewire drives I've had are noisy (with high pitched hums) even when idle. (I realize that the noise has more to do with the enclosures, fans, heat sink, etc.)
Quiet matters most, so if necessary, I'll just keep the external drives disconnected.

In the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences, make sure "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" is not checked. This will keep your external drives spinning, so you won't be delayed waiting for them to spin up.
"I realize that the noise has more to do with the enclosures, fans, heat sink, etc."
Yes, many if not most enclosures amplify whatever noise the drive inside makes. Your desk or table may also serve as a sounding board for your drives. Setting them on something that absorbs the vibration can help, as long as you don't obstruct any cooling air intakes or outlets.
Right now, your external drives are spinning up whenever the OS is asked to display all the possible places for things to be found or stored. I don't know of any way to limit that behavior other than unmounting the disks you don't want displayed.
Spinup time is generally shorter for 2.5" drives than for the much heavier 3.5" drives — there's just less inertia to overcome as things get moving. And 2.5" drives can also be quieter, because less mass is spinning and any tiny imbalance that might cause extra vibration is correspondingly less significant.

Preventing External USB's from sleeping

I have 9 external USB HD's connected to my 24" iMac, mostly vis hubs. They constantly go to sleep and when I try to download a file via Firefox or Safari, there's an extended wait while the browser tries to make a connection and the drive wakes up. I know they're not high speed enterprise class drives that are meant to always be on but the wait is annoying. Is there a way I can prevent some or all of them from going to sleep?

Depends on the HDs. Some, like Western Digital ones, have proprietary spin-down crapola software embedded within that can't be turned off. Talk to the vendors of those HDs.

Can I Keep My External HD from Spinning Down?

I've got an external HD connected to my Mac Pro running Snow Leopard. But I'm always getting spinning beach balls as I wait for the external drive to spin up and become available.
Is there any way for me to keep that drive always spinning?
The Energy Saver setting "Put the hard Disk(s) to sleep when possible" is already unchecked.
Thanks for any help.
-=-Joe

Here is a discussion on the subject from a dubious source...
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=493300
In a Discussion on CHUD tools...
I have a NewerTech miniStack connected to my eMac, and I follow one of the oldest mantras in computing: "Save early. Save often." That means saving every few minutes, but sometimes OS X puts your external drive to sleep sooner than you'd like, and that means that you have to wait for the drive to spin up to speed before your file can be saved.
From a source I never use but I believe you have linked here once or twice:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html
"To conserve energy, modern hard disk drives are designed to spin-down after a certain period of inactivity. This is usually referred to as "hard drive sleep" but the technical term is Standby mode.
In Standby mode, the hard drive is in a state of low energy consumption and its platters have ceased to spin. It is awaiting a read or write instruction, at which time the hard drive will spin-up its platters — wake up and enter Active mode — to perform the read or write operation. It can require up to 30-35 seconds for a hard drive to spin up once in Standby mode."
Also here...
http://www.szilveszter.ca/news/prevent-hard-disk-drive-spindown-on-mac-os-x/
I believe I could do a fuller search but I did do due diligence for 'ya
-mj

Iphoto prevents my mac book from shutting down

When I shut down my MacBook iphoto prevents it from shutting down. I usually need to force quit.

Since we only know what you tell us you have to share to get assistance. Like what version of iPhoto? Of theOS? What error messages do you get?whywon't iPhoto quit? What has recently changed? Etc
LN

External firewire drive constant spin-down/up

I often connect an external Lacie firewire drive to my MacBook Pro for regular time machine backups. When the drive is connected and I'm using my Mac, the drive is constantly spinning and in an 'awake' state.
The drive remains in this state for as long as the display is on. As soon as the display enters sleep mode the external drive spins down, remains in sleep mode for 30 seconds, then spins-up for 20 seconds, only to enter sleep mode again. This cycle continues endlessly causing excessive noise and needless wear and tear.
I've unchecked put hard disk to sleep when possible in the energy saver preferences although this hasn't helped.
Any ideas?

Try un-checking the drive sleep box.
What model is the drive? Is it bus-powered or does it have its own AC power supply brick? What does LaCie have to say?

How to partion USB drive from LV

Hello all
I would like to know if it is possible to partition, and format, a USB drive (or HDD for that matter) from LV. I could really use an automated program to find a specific device and partition/format it.
It is to be used by production personnel, and 'diskpart' is a bit too low level for them.
Ideally my application should recognise a USB memory stick, partition/format it and write an image file ('imagex' from the Windows prompt).
I'm using the newst LV and Windows 7.
Is any of the above possible, and where do I look?

Hi teknik_kim,
you can also get your information if you use the "system exec" function to call the diskpart.exe. Call it with a script as parameter and parse the result. Attached you'll find an example and the result from my system.
Hope it helps.
Mike
Attachments:
diskpart_BD.PNG ‏24 KB
diskpart_FP.PNG ‏24 KB

AEBS prevents my USB drive from spinning down

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for