Hard disk spinning during SLEEP is normal - says ASP

I was concerned about my computer making some quiet noises while in sleep mode. But I asked about this to an ASP I recently visited and he said sometimes the HDD comes and does some stuff.
I feel a little bit better, but the fact that my computer really isn't fully asleep sort of concerns me.

milew66 wrote:
Thanks, unfortunately I do not have applecare, although still have time on my warranty. It ***** that no one can answer a simple question for me over the phone. I pay 1800$ for a computer that is supposed to be top of the line, 6 months later it is talking in its sleep, and they want 19$ to answer a question over the phone. I really do not want to lug my 27 inch computer an hour away if this can be resolved another way.
Are there ANY doagnostic/hardware tests/software that I can buy or whatever to run and let me know if the HDD has errors? I have windows installed as well via bootcamp. If I run a hard drive scanner on that side, will it only scan that partition?
OS X has exactly what you need built into it, OS X is a much more efficient system than MS Windows.There is a utility called Disk Utility built into the system, to repair the HD and check for it's overall health boot in the Recover Partion, to do this when you hear the startup tone hold down the OPTION Key and choose the Recovery Partion, then choose Disk Utility and you can run Repair Disk. If it has errors (which I'm almost certain yours does not) they will be reported. I would also recommend you run Repair Disk Permissions and also read:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448
BTW as long as your machine is less than 1 year old you can still buy AppleCARE, if you still can then I'd strongly recommend you do so. If for no other reason it will provide you 3 years of peace of mind and you can call AppleCare support if you have anyquestions. If your machine is covered by AppleCARE and requires a part replacement 3x Apple will replace your machine. In addition if you live within 50 miles of an AASP you can request on-site service.

Similar Messages

Hard disk spins during sleep

Somehow even when the screen is black my hard disks keeps spinning which is surely likely to wear it out sooner rather than later.
Any idea what I can do?

milew66 wrote:
Thanks, unfortunately I do not have applecare, although still have time on my warranty. It ***** that no one can answer a simple question for me over the phone. I pay 1800$ for a computer that is supposed to be top of the line, 6 months later it is talking in its sleep, and they want 19$ to answer a question over the phone. I really do not want to lug my 27 inch computer an hour away if this can be resolved another way.
Are there ANY doagnostic/hardware tests/software that I can buy or whatever to run and let me know if the HDD has errors? I have windows installed as well via bootcamp. If I run a hard drive scanner on that side, will it only scan that partition?
OS X has exactly what you need built into it, OS X is a much more efficient system than MS Windows.There is a utility called Disk Utility built into the system, to repair the HD and check for it's overall health boot in the Recover Partion, to do this when you hear the startup tone hold down the OPTION Key and choose the Recovery Partion, then choose Disk Utility and you can run Repair Disk. If it has errors (which I'm almost certain yours does not) they will be reported. I would also recommend you run Repair Disk Permissions and also read:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448
BTW as long as your machine is less than 1 year old you can still buy AppleCARE, if you still can then I'd strongly recommend you do so. If for no other reason it will provide you 3 years of peace of mind and you can call AppleCare support if you have anyquestions. If your machine is covered by AppleCARE and requires a part replacement 3x Apple will replace your machine. In addition if you live within 50 miles of an AASP you can request on-site service.

IMac 2009 (21 inch) making hard drive noises during sleep mode - normal??

Hi there guys,
I have an iMac 21 inch (2009) , 3ghz C2D, 4GB Ram, 1TB hard drive (the hard drive was upgraded straight thru apple, when i bought it i paid extra for a 1tb hard drive, its not a DIY hard drive upgrade)
aniways, I recently noticed that during sleep mode, occasionally (not all the time) I can hear some faint clicking / hard drive noise, which is really weird because i put the imac in sleep mode and it really shouldnt be doing that no?
My 13 inch macbook pro 2010 never does this in sleep mode, its always dead silent
Im just wondering if this hard drive accessing / clicking noise during sleep mode is normal in imacs??

Im just wondering if this hard drive accessing / clicking noise during sleep mode is normal in imacs?
No it should not be doing anything but sleeping. The SMC controls sleep, try resetting it.
Reset the SMC
• Shut down the computer.
• Detach the computer's power cord.
• Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
• Release the power button.
• Reattach the computers power cable.
• Turn on the computer.
Dah•veed

Hard disk spin-down

I have installed a second hard drive (500GB Western Digital SATA SE16) in my Mac Pro quad-core. The drive spins down regardless of the power management settings (system preferences) and does so even when I’m actively working, but not directly accessing the second drive. It then spins up, with a corresponding time lag of 10-20 seconds and the spinning beach ball, when drive access is necessary. I know from the WD website that there is a setting for a jumper on pins 3 & 4 which will prevent spin down (much like would be required for a RAID setup). Does it make sense to enable that jumper to prevent spin down in this case? Will the system power management settings still function properly with the jumper set? Thanks for any input.

Hi Pascal,
"I'd really love to be able to work in silence.. and also save my poor hard disk !"
As you already know, constantly spinning up and down is very bad for a hard disk.
The best would be to have it sleeping all the time, but if this is not possible, better leave it spinning constantly then.
"What is the annoying Panther feature (that Jaguar or OS9 didn't have) that keeps spinning my disk ?"
I'm not sure about that, but I think it has to do with the constant rewriting of files that Mac OS X uses (causing defragmentation as a side-effect, BTW).
My guess is that this didn't happen to your newly installed system, but now happens because there is much more fragmented free space on your hard drive.
Another explanation is if the OS X behaviour mentioned has been enhanced after 10.3.6 or so?
Or this can be also the kind of buggy behaviour described here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1267183#1267183
The default spindown time if you choose "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" in Energy Saver, is 10 minutes of inactivity.
You can use Cocktail or TinkerTool System to modify this 10 minutes delay, or paste this Terminal command:
sudo pmset -a spindown 2
to reduce the required inactivity to 2 minutes
(but again, this is not what you are looking for, as this is worse than leaving it constantly spinning, unless perfect silence is so important to you).
I don't know how to tell Mac OS X to behave like former systems though, and I don't even know if it is possible at all.
Usually someone would like to set a longer spindown delay, like
sudo pmset -a spindown 120
for example.
Good luck!
Axl

Disks spin down (sleep) unbidden

Under Tiger (10.4.6) One or more of my internal hard drives spin down (sleep) when the drive isn't accessed for a short time, even if I'm using the computer, e.g. typing a message.
I have unchecked "put hard disks to sleep" in the Energy Saver and trashed the preferences (Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist) and reset the pram. The problem still happens.
Can anyone help?

This problem is definitely related to Tiger, at least partly. Previously, I was running 10.2, and this didn't happen.
It's not the only change to my drive behavior that appeared when I installed Tiger. At some point when I was running 10.2, I mistakenly moved my third internal hard drive (which is on its own interface card) to the wrong connector on the ribbon cable. The drive still worked, but it would spin down after an hour or so if I didn't access the drive. But the other 2 drives would keep spinning. When I installed Tiger, things changed. It didn't even see that third drive at all, and the other 2 drives would spin down after some short time (like 15 minutes or so) of inactivity. I moved the drive to the correct connector on the ribbon cable, and all of a sudden, Tiger recognized the drive -- but that drive now spins down too after a short time. Again, this is a new behavior under Tiger.
FYI, I migrated from 10.2 to 10.4, so it could have been a change introduced in 10.3.
G4 dual 1GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Fans spin during sleep

Hello,
can anyone help? - im using the latest os and the latest firmware, but for some reason my fans spin during sleep - its been like it a while, but it never used to happen...
any clues as to how i can remedy this?
thanks for your time
Lee

Hi Lee Harding-
Reduce your setup to keyboard and mouse each plugged into their own USB port on the Mac, and video connected to the monitor. Remove all internal PCI cards (if any) and unplug everything, including hubs, from the Mac.
If this works, add things back one at a time until you find the culprit. If this configuration doesn't work we will dig deeper.
Luck-
-DP

Ipod hard disk spins continiously when connected to PC, kills battery?

when ipod 4th generation is connected to PC/Windows Pro, connecting to itunes and downloading songs, hard disk spins continuioulsy discharging the full battery in 5 minutes. Battery is good because it will play 5 hours on full charge. Genius at Apple Genius Bar say hard disk spins continiously when it's hook to PC, he say this discharges battery, genius does not know why HD spins continously.... say it should only spin once every 20 min or so while downloading song, when hooked to mac at genius bar, downloads songs as designed

see Restore to factory setting helps
if does not try the following as the spins may caused by the bad sectors on the HD of the iPod
For Window computer
Go to folder “My Computer”
Hope you can see your iPod there and right click on the iPod
Choose “Format”. Ensure the settings are at “Default” and that “Quick Format” is not checked
Now select “Format”
Eject your iPod and do a Reset
Open the iTunes 7 and click “Restore”

Hard disk going to sleep without permission

The hard disk on my Mini spins down despite the fact that I have the "put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible option" shut off. Is anybody else experiencing this? This is before the system starts going into sleep mode.

I've never used it myself, so I'm not sure what happens to these manual settings if you use the Energy Saver System Preferences to change the settings again, but take a look at the "pmset" (modify power management settings) command. Type:
man pmset
...and then press "return" at a Terminal prompt to see the "manual" pages and all of the options. Remember to type a "q" when you're done to return to the prompt. Note, "The -a, -b, -c, -u flags determine whether the settings apply to battery (-b), charger (wall power) (-c), UPS (-u) or all (-a)." And the argument is "disksleep" and then the number of minutes. So, if you want the hard drive to spin down after 30 minutes of idle time only while you're using the battery, you type:
pmset -b disksleep 30
...and then press "return". If you want the hard drive to spin down after an hour of idle time no matter what power you're using, type:
pmset -a disksleep 60
...and then press "return". After using the "pmset -g disk" ("get" command), it appears that the setting to put the disk to sleep when possible sets it to ten minutes. After changing it to uncheck the option, mine was then set to zero when connected to AC power.
-Doug

"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.

"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

ALL hard drives-except boot disk-eject during sleep!!!!

Hello all,
I'm looking for a solution so a rather frustrating problem. I'm running Mountain lion (10.8.2) on an early 2009 Mac Pro.
Here is my storage setup:
Boot disk- 60 Gig OWC SSD Mercury Electra connected to the secondary optical slot (Sata II)
Internal Drive bays are all routed through this RAID card, which also necessitates the use of this attachment.
Drive bays are as follows:
Bay 1- Crucial M4 512 gb, 6 gb/s SSD
Bay 2- WD Caviar Black 1tb HDD
Bay 3- WD Caviar Black 1tb HDD **The WD drives are in a hardware Raid 0**
Bay 4- Seagate 1 tb HDD
Additionally, I have this 3tb external enclosure connected connected to the RAID card as well.
Additional notes for any questions about why this setup is how it is: This machine is used for music production (primarily film scores). This necessitates the need for the RAID card for streaming data (music samples) very quickly. The RAID card not only allows a fast hardware raid, but also allows my 6 gb/s SSD to read at full speed (500 mb/s) as opposed to my standard 3 gb/s which my is all my Logic board supports.
SO, the problem occurs when I put the computer to sleep. When it wakes from sleep—every time— all of my hard disks AND external enclosure are ejected from the computer, save the boot disk, of course. The common denominator here is of course the connection to the RAID card, but I'm also reading this happens to peoples exteranl drives very frequently on Mountain Lion as well. Is there any solution out there, or anything you can glean from my setup?
Thanks very much,
R

janne salovaara,
have you tried booting the new disk externally (either by putting it into an external enclosure, or by connecting it with a SATA-to-USB or SATA-to-FireWire adapter, and then using Startup Manager to choose it as the boot volume), to see if that works? If the new disk is bootable externally, but it isn’t bootable internally, that would point to a faulty internal SATA cable — even though it will boot with the old disk. (That slowness of the old disk could also be a symptom of a faulty internal SATA cable.)

Internal Hard Disk spin down - Mac locks up

Hi.
Recently my iMac has started to occasionally lock up. The other evening it was quiet and I heard the hard drive spin down. Following this any action results in the beach ball, and eventually everything locks up, because it cannot read from or write to the disk.
I have tried disabling hard drive sleep. Reseting the SMC and PRAM.
Not sure if it is related, but I also noticed that the system profiler reports that the last hardware test was run in 4008 (I'm sure it used to say 2008). So I ran a hardware test, no problems. The last hardware test date is now reported as 28th June 4010. Hmmmm.
Any thoughts on this, or help as to the next step will be very happily received.

It is normal to see the spinning beach ball cursor while the drive spins up, but obviously it should go away once the drive is spun up & the iMac should not eventually lock up.
Also, not every drive honors the spin-down command from the OS -- some spin down automatically according to their own internal timer regardless of the system preference -- but AFAIK no drive Apple ships in any Mac does this.
So just to cover all the possibilities, can you confirm that your iMac has the original internal drive it shipped with, & that there are no external drive(s) attached to it? If you do have any external drives, does the issue persist if they are unattached?
You might want to run Disk Utility's Verify/Repair Disk step on each drive you use to make sure a file system issue is not involved, & the Apple Hardware Test (which will require removing any non-essential peripherals like external drives & thus not test them) to see if a hardware issue is causing this.

Hard Disks Spinning Down

Apologies if this has been answered.
In the Energy Saver preferences, I have unchecked the preference to spin down the hard disks (put them to sleep). But even so, the disks still spin down, which leaves me staring at the beach ball several times a day. I have the other preferences set to sleep both the system and display after 1 hour.
Is there a way in 10.4.6 to keep the disks from spinning down?
QuickSilver Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I have the same problem with a similar, if not identical, computer.
I have unchecked "put hard disks to sleep" in the Energy Saver and trashed the preferences (Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist)
The problem still happens. Can anyone help?

Sleep Question when "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep" is unchecked

In the Energy Saver options, I unchecked the "Put the hard disks to sleep when possible" option ... what happens if I close the lid? Does that option get overridden and the hard drive goes to sleep?
Will I be safe to move my mbp around in my backpack when I travel? Or do I have to shut it down totally? I tried finding the answer but couldn't find a real response.
I just want to know if the laptop's drive stops spinning and I can move it around safely or if I should always turn off my mbp when I put it in my backpack. Thanks for any answers.
Mac OS X (10.4.8)

> what happens if I close the lid? Does that option get overridden and the hard drive goes to sleep?
Yes, it's over-ridden, the heads park and you can move it around happily
Make sure it does actually go to sleep and not hang up on some run-away (BootCamp) process or similar ... you can tell by the noise. If it's not silent within 10 seconds of the lid closing open it up again and check Activity Monitor.

Hard disk spinning during SLEEP is normal - says ASP

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