Keep external drive awake

I have an external firewire drive that likes to fall asleep after about a half hour of inactivity. It disappears from the Desktop and Finder and I have to use the power button ON the drive to get it back.
I use it with Time Machine (overnight), it falls asleep after the 3 hours which I've specified in System Preferences with the energy pane. Only backups to 2AM are done instead of all night.
When I turn TM off for daytime use, the external drive sleeps after about a half hour and have to push the power button on the external drive to get it showing in the Finder again.
. Question
What simple Automator script could I use to say, write a few bytes to it every 15 minutes or so when I'm not using TM? Or is there a refresh kind of program? Maybe I could copy a file to the drive overwriting the same file written 15 minutes ago?
Byronunderscoreintaaaatttmmmaaacc.cccoomm

Thanks to both who replied. I'm going to mark this as answered, because it's a problem that comes up once or twice a day and doesn't seem to harm the data on the external drive. It has shut itself down with operating light off after all, so I can just do a power On to get it recognized again.
Doesn't seem to be related to the system pref setting, have that uncheckmarked as you noted.
Thanks again

Similar Messages

How to keep hard drives awake?

And no, unchecking "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" in system preferences does NOT work...
I have my original and 3 additional hard drives in my G4. 2 are set up as a RAID system and contain most of my work (clients) files. If I work on personal stuff for maybe 15 minutes or so, and don't access my drives containing client files, they fall asleep, even if I'm banging away on the keyboard doing other stuff...
Then, if I go to access something from one of those drives, there's a 10 - 15 second lag while I wait for them to wake up. Or if I'm busy working on client stuff for a while, and a iCal reminder pops up, and I want to click on it (either to view the event now, or "remind me later") or whatever, I have to wait again for 5 - 10 seconds while THAT drive wakes up...
Drives me crazy... How can I keep these things awake until I"m actually away from the keyboard and not doing anything on the computer???

If you run the 10.4 version of Apple System Profiler \[Apple Menu > About this Mac > More info] and look at the "Power" tab, you will see the second number is your Hard Disk Sleep time in minutes. They must think we all have laptops --the default is like 10 minutes. Knowing that this setting is independent, but not accessible in Energy Saver, made me crazy for just the reasons you listed.
There are two ways to change it. There are command line Utilities that can change it, and you can change it directly using Property List Editor. There does appear to be a downloadable package that includes PList Editor.
The command line Utility that changes it is pmset. It is documented in the man pages here:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/pmset.1. html
Check to see whether it is included in your System before you get too far -- I have it, but I have the Server Admin tools loaded.
Message was edited by: Grant Bennet-Alder

External drive disconnection problem.

How do you go about keeping external drives connected when the computer goes to sleep? I have eexternal drives connected to both the iMac and Macbook Pro, When they go to sleep, somehow the dirves get disconnected sith "disk not ejected properly" messages. This happened some with Mountain Lion, but all the time with Mavericks. I have Seagate drives on the iMac, and a WD My Passport on the laptop.

Hi,
I was also facing this problem for a long time.
I tried many ways to get this thing rid off..
In my case i was using a WD external hard disc which was NTFS windows partitioned.
So i was using TUXERA which is a 3rd party app to enable write access with this NTFS Drive.
I simply uninstalled this app, and the disk eject was Successful.
If yours a similar problem, hope it helps you.
Peace!

My 320GB external drive for Time Machine now only has enough capacity to keep a backup of one day. All my other backups are gone. What can I do to fix this situation?

I've been using a 320GB external drive for time machine for the last several years. The backups always worked fine and when necessary I was able to look at & restore older data from the time capsule. Recently, I keep getting the message that a backup cannot be completed and an older backup will be deleted. Usually this wasn't an issue because I still had several months of information on disk. Now a one-time backup takes up 315GB and therefore I only have a backup of the previous day. I don't understand this because I thought that the backup only saves information that has changed and doesn't copy everything everytime. What do I need to do to get my backups to a reasonable size so that I can keep at least 1 month data stored on it.? Please don't tell me I need a larger drive ... that would be too easy.

Get a larger drive for your TM backups.
The recommended size is 3 times what you are backup. So if 315 GB is a backup then you need a 1 TB drive.
Allan

I am having trouble keeping the quality of my video when exporting to my external drive. I change the kind to "original" but when I view the video from the external drive once exported, the sound and picture are distorted.

I am having trouble keeping the quality of my video when exporting to my external hard drive. I have tried to export from iphoto with changing kind to "original" but when I open the video from the external drive the quality is effected. I have also tried copying the video to my desktop and then dragging and dropping onto the drive...same problem. Any suggestions? I would like to save everything to my external drive so that I can delete all of iphoto library and then reimport to correct a few things.

The file sizes are identical. In the finder I did a search for all .mov files. Then when they came up, I went through them and named each one so that they would be easier to find. I am a new mac user and am used to windows. I realized later that I should not have done this....with a mac files should be named within iphoto app...not finder....When I went to open the videos in iphoto, it wouldn't allow me. I had to go into finder, copy to desktop and reimport into iphoto. Then the videos worked again. However, I had the problem with the poor video quality when copied to external drive before that. Actually the first problem I had was when I copied to ext drive...videos were copying as an image...so I learned that you have to change "kind" to original before exporting....then that problem was solved...now they are videos, not images but not of a great quality. Skips, sound and images are not in sync...etc...

How Can I Keep Music on an External Drive?

I've dealt with this issue before and asked questions about it, but I STILL don't understand how iTunes works when it comes to its "Library" "Media Folder" etc.
Can anyone break it down for me exactly how it all works? Is there a good resource to explain it?
The basic problem I have is the same one that many people have: I keep my actual music on an external hard drive. However, if I launch iTunes when that hard drive isn't plugged in, iTunes somehow changes so that all my music vanishes no matter what I do. Plugging in my hard drive doesn't help. iTunes has created a new Library that contains a list of all my music but with no idea where that music is. I try to tell iTunes where that music is, but nothing works.
You'd think an easy fix would be to always plug in the hard drive first. However, even that doesn't help. iTunes will sometimes not see that hard drive when it is plugged in, and I have no way to predict when it sees the drive and when it doesn't. I start adding new music or podcasts, and it might all be being added to some new library iTunes created and I'm totally lost once again.
On the Preferences/Advanced tab there is the option to change your Media Folder location, but that doesn't work. My music is on the external hard drive, but there is no Media Folder there. The iTunes Media Folder is here: My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media
I've read that you can hold down the Shift key when you launch iTunes and then you get the option to "Choose Library" or "Create Library." The idea is that iTunes has created a new empty Library and that you just have to select your old Library to get things back to normal. However, there is only ever one Library file listed. There is no new one and old one to select from. There is no Library file on the external drive, either. So I have no idea what I'm looking for.
If I choose "Create Library", it then asks me for a "Folder name". I don't know what that is, either. I thought I'd just have to give my new Library a name. The more I try to deal with this issue, the more confused I get.
To further muddy the waters, under the "General" tab on the iTunes preferences page, it lists my library as "Doug's Library", the name I gave it long ago. However, the option to choose "Doug's Library" never comes up. I've never seen a file with that name or a Library with that name. So what is that all about?
I've used Windows Explorer to go into the iTunes folder to see what files are there, and then it gets more confusing. There is a file called "iTunes Library" and a second file called "iTunes Music Library." Why does the music have a second Library file?
Any suggestions or guidance? There has to be a way to cut through all this confusion. I've had so many problems with iTunes along these lines that I've literally stopped using it to listen to music. It's just not worth the hassle. I spend far more hours trying "fix" iTunes than listening to music with it.
Thanks to anyone who can point me in the right direction.
Doug

I do the same thing as you do...
My music is on an external drive as to not use up gigabytes of storage that need not be used for media.
There are a couple basic principles to iTunes that I believe you should know.
1. iTunes is not a media storage program. It does not store your media "in iTunes". It simply is an organization tool for your media already on a hard disk.
2. As iTunes is not a storage mechanism, it has no way to "know" whether or not the media that is listed is actually there. This is where the "design" of iTunes comes into play.
I like to think of iTunes as a bread-crumb trail. The "music" in iTunes, isn't actually there. The bread crumb is the location on the external hard drive.
If that bread crumb trail disappears (in this case the external drive you use). If said external drive is not plugged in, that bread crumb trail is not able to be followed. iTunes is "lost" and unable to find the media. The only way to remedy this is to place the media on your local drive.
To address your issue of the library. If you hold down shift, you can select your library on your external drive. It will be a file with an .itl extension. The folder name will be your external drive.
I go into edit > preferences > advanced and set my library to the correct location. Make sure you check the box "Copy to iTunes Folder when importing" (or whatever it says).
You can't fix the issue of iTunes not seeing the media if your drive is unplugged unless you physically move the content to your OS HDD...Or any other HDD you use.

I have my iTunes Library on and external hard drive. I have a new computer and want to use iTunes and KEEP my files on the external drive.

My iTunes library is on an external hard drive, and I was able to access / add to the library from my windows laptop.
I now have a new laptop, and want to be able to KEEP the library on the external drive while being able to use iTunes from the new laptop.
I have selected "choose library" in iTunes, and have chosen the iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive.
My media populates in iTunes on the new laptop version of iTunes, but when I click on a song iTunes says that it cannot locate the song.
Your help is kindly appreciated!

Thanks. Were the settings shown in your last screenshot in force when you added the song that's shown on being on the C: drive? It is also possible that at some point you ran iTunes with the external drive disconnected, in which case it will have defaulted to the library on the C: drive, or that you've run iTunes without explicitly selecting the library on the E: drive. To make sure the latter is the case, hold down SHIFT while starting iTunes, then when you get this prompt:
click on Choose Library..., navigate to the location of your current iTunes Library.itl file, and click Open.
Part of your issue may that its not obvious where that current database file is located. The folder layout on your E: drive isn't the one that's most easily managed - so its possible that the database file could be in:
E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes
E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes\iTunes
E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes\iTunes 1
I suggest that a lot of your issues can be addressed by reshaping your library into the reliable "portable" layout as described in tt2's Make a split library portable user tip. Comparing your screenshot with the equivalent on my system (where I have a "well-formed" library on an external drive):
where:
there is just one iTunes folder with everything used by iTunes inside it
all media is held within subfolders of the iTunes Media folder
The way you have yours set up, where the iTunes Media Folder location is set to E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes rather than E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes\iTunes Media is probably why some of your media is not being located correctly - the extent to which iTunes can correctly resolve locations is, to an extent, reliant on the folders for the different media kinds (Music, Audiobooks, etc.) being inside the iTunes Media media folder. One common misunderstanding (not helped at all by Apple's documentation!) is that the iTunes Media Folder location setting in Edit > Preferences > Advanced does not tell iTunes where to find anything; rather it determines where iTunes will put new additions to your Library, in conjunction with the Copy files to iTunes Media folder ... flag:
I would definitely take the time to work through the steps to bring your library into the "portable" shape - there may be few remaining issues with broken links when that's complete but this will be much easier to fix if your library is in a more standard structure.

How to move itunes library .New vista pc &keep music on an external drive?

I'm moving from a Windows XP machine to a new Vista machine. All my music is on an external hd that I conenct via usb. Before giving away my old lap I backup the itunes files named itunes.itl,itunesmusic library.xml, albun art work folder
I installed itunes 7.2 and then I go to the edit preferences and change the music folder to f;//my music son itunes gets the music from my external hard drive.
Then i copy the itunes files that i back up into the the c ;users itunes folder.
WHEN i open itunes it start loading my library but suddenly stops and somtekind of error as file lock appears. son i unistall itunes an reistall it. but need to install it rigth so i can keep with my playlist etc.
I aloso
tried to add all my music to the new library. So i go to add folder to library and itunes starts getting some songs (i have more than 10000) but after a few minutes it suddenly stops and no songs were added to the library. and itunes freezes, so the only way to go ,is control alt delete ,stop itunes and start again.
I triend adding folder by folder , my music is organized as example. each floder has artist album and songs but I have to many folders . i tried adding one folder each time it ,instead off adding the my music folder with all the subfloders and it seems to work but it is going to take me months to finish.
does some one knows what should i do ? or why itunes sotps suddenly? or what is the right procedure i should follow to keep my music in the external hard drive and continue with my play lists.?it is like a new installation with all the music in an external hd, an I want to keep it that way.
Does some one know if i have to do something with the ituneslibrary files befre copynig then to the new ditunes directory created with the new installation , in refering as permits or porperties ets?
what i want to do is a clear new installation of itunes and keep my music in the external usb hard drive , but keep or restore my playlists and library that i back up before.?
hp pavillion dv6220 Windows Vista hard drive connected via usb ,nortoninternet security software

I do the same thing as you do...
My music is on an external drive as to not use up gigabytes of storage that need not be used for media.
There are a couple basic principles to iTunes that I believe you should know.
1. iTunes is not a media storage program. It does not store your media "in iTunes". It simply is an organization tool for your media already on a hard disk.
2. As iTunes is not a storage mechanism, it has no way to "know" whether or not the media that is listed is actually there. This is where the "design" of iTunes comes into play.
I like to think of iTunes as a bread-crumb trail. The "music" in iTunes, isn't actually there. The bread crumb is the location on the external hard drive.
If that bread crumb trail disappears (in this case the external drive you use). If said external drive is not plugged in, that bread crumb trail is not able to be followed. iTunes is "lost" and unable to find the media. The only way to remedy this is to place the media on your local drive.
To address your issue of the library. If you hold down shift, you can select your library on your external drive. It will be a file with an .itl extension. The folder name will be your external drive.
I go into edit > preferences > advanced and set my library to the correct location. Make sure you check the box "Copy to iTunes Folder when importing" (or whatever it says).
You can't fix the issue of iTunes not seeing the media if your drive is unplugged unless you physically move the content to your OS HDD...Or any other HDD you use.

HT4527 I have a new laptop/PC, and I want to keep content of iTunes on an external drive, how do I set this up?

I have a new laptop/pc, and I am trying to set up iTunes on it; but I want to keep content on an external drive (lots of movies/books/etc.). I know I will not be able to see when not hooked up to that drive, or sync with out it. What is the best way to go about setting this up.

Hi drnels,
Are you saying you still have access to the backup? If you do, you should take a look at [[Backing up your information]]. It will show you where all of your personal information is stored in Firefox and how you can copy it to a new install.
Hopefully this helps!

I have a macbook air late 2010 and keep getting a warning that my hard drive is full and to delete things so I purchased a external hard drive (1TB) but I'm just not sure what the correct way to transfer and store files to the external drive is. First MAC

I purchased a macbook air about 5 months ago and lately i keep recieving a warning that the hard drive or disk is full and that I will need to move items to trash in order to free up space on it. I purchased a external hard drive 1 TB but I'm very new to mac and ios and unsure as to how I'm suppose to transfer my files (video, pics, music etc.) from my mac over to the external hard drive in the correct way so I won't end up deleting them permenately or screwing anything up with my mac as far as the applications and programs being able to run. Am I supposed to just copy to the external hard drive and then move to and empty the trash? That's pretty much all I could come up with, but then what if i need or want to access that file again at a later time. Also, I have an i Phone and i pad so with i cloud it automatically syncs all my purcheses and if i delete something from itunes on my mac it deletes from my ipad.
I'd appreciate any kind of input i think im just a little lost here. I have to say i love my Mac and wouldn't trade it for anything (except maybe a macbook pro w/more memory)... Is there something I'm missing???

To free up hard drive space the best bet is to move data files that you don't need access to all the time. Likely candidates are music, video, and photos. Things like word processing and spreadsheet files can also be moved but they tend not to be very large and so don't free up much space. The problem with moving the above mentioned files is that iTunes and iPhoto need to know where the files are stored.
Here's an article explaining how to move the iTunes folder. You can move the iPhoto library using the Finder but there is a slight complication. Start iPhoto, open the Preferences and click on the Advanced tab. The first option is "Copy items to the iPhoto Library". If this option is checked, copy the iPhoto library to your external folder (drag it from the Pictures folder to your external drive) and then delete it from your Picture folder. If this option is not checked, it is a bit more complicated and we'll need to talk a bit.

FCPX: How to import, transcode and keep an Event on an external drive

I was given 300 GB of media files, mostly Quicktime movies, on a read-only NTFS format Lacie drive. I tried importing into FCPX, checked the optimized and proxy transcoding options as well as import folders as Keyword Collections option, and it took hours for less than 1/3 of the media to render, then I got a warning that my startup disc was almost full.
I assume the best thing to do is start over, and move my files to another read-and-write drive so that I can keep the transcoded files off my Mac.
But my main question concerns the FCPX Events folder:
If all media and other project-related info is stored in the Events folder on my Mac, how can I keep the transcoded media on an external drive? Do I just uncheck “Copy files to Final Cut Events folder” in the Import dialog? (If I uncheck it, where are the transcoded files copied to, and how are they organized? What stays in the Events folder on the Mac, and what goes on the external drive?)
Also, should I not bother transcoding, or just select one of the options (which one, and why?) I’m editing a 12-15 minute narrative film – mostly cuts, probably no effects, but will color correct and add titles and sound fx/music.
Any insight for this process, as well as practical advice, would be greatly appreciated, as I’m trying to fully understand and start off the right way before I dive into this edit. Thanks in advance!

I would create a new Event in FCPX first so that I can choose which drive those files are going to end up on.
Then, Import your files. Choose the Event they should be Imported to. If you want it to copy the files to that Event onto the drive it was created on, then choose Copy Files to Events Folder. It will only copy, not just move the files. If you are copying them onto your MBP's hard drive...yeah, that's probably going to fill up unless you've upgraded that drive. And yes, 300GB of media can take a while to process and copy, especially if you are Optimizing and creating Proxies.
In my experience, Optimized files can get fairly large I'm not sure of the percentage) and Proxy files have ended up about 1/2 the size of the originals. If you are creating Optimized files, Proxy files, AND copying the original media...you have three versions of the files and that 300GB may end up being about 1TB that FCPX is creating.
If you want to work primarily with proxies, I would NOT copy the original file, but I would have FCPX create the proxies in the Event folder on your hard drive. If you just gotta have Optimized files for your final output...I would wait until you are ready for output to create those. If you only have the Proxy files on your laptop, with the original files on their original drive, then it should only take up 150-200GB on your laptop hard drive. At that point, you can leave FCPX in proxy mode (got to FCXP>Preferences>Playback>Use proxy files
If you detach the external hard drive, the original files will show up as missing, but proxy mode should recognize the Proxy files in the Event folder.
If you still want to create Optimized files, Proxy files and copy the Original Media, get a separate external drive that will have the room you need and one you can edit from.
For large projects where I have a lot of footage, I edit and add effects in Proxy mode and then switch to Original/Optimized>Highest Quality for final color grading, rendering and exporting.
Hope that helps! al the best!

Keeping files from PC External Drive

Ok, I recently did a switch from PC to MAC and absolutely love my MAC. However, the thing I have going on now is I have this external drive that I had for my PC that has some files and things on it that I want to keep so that if I ever need them and I have a PC going again, I'll be able to get them on the computer when I get it. I do want to convert this drive to a MAC format so that the MacBook can be backed up onto this drive. I don't want to loose the files that are on it now and I know that I can take them and save them to my mac and keep them that way, but what I'm wondering is if there is a way that I can take those files and put them somwehere so that they will be available if later I want to put them back on a PC on something that the PC can access? Right now the macbook can read the data off the drive and use it for itself, however, it can't write anything to the drive because it is formated in NTFS format. I want to be able to later get the files off the drive if needed. Can I do something with the drive where the MacBook will be able to put information on the drive and then later if I get a PC going again be able to get the files back on that computer? I don't have the PC anymore and the files are on the drive, but I just don't want to loose them as I may need them if I build a new PC as that one just broke and I love this MacBook so don't see myself doing it too soon, but at the same time I need a PC to be able to play some of the games that I like to play so when I get everything together I'll build it again.

Install software such as Paragon NTFS on the computer. This will permit you to make changes to the drive and use it for backups with a product such as Carbon Copy Cloner capable of backing up to a disk image, but not allow it to be used for Time Machine backups, which can only be put onto a drive or partition formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
(65706)

I have my iTunes media on an external drive but I would like to know if I keep the library file back to my internal hard drive so it gets backed up by Time Machine.

I have all my media on an external drive for space. Is there a way I move the library file back to my internal had drive so that Timemachine will keepa backup of the file. Recently my library file became damaged and I lost all my playlists and playcounts and all that good stuff. Thanks for your help.

I never lost any media mind you just the library file that tell iTunes where everything lives.
On this point, you can keep a copy of of the "Itunes Music Library.xml" file, which contains the itunes metadata for your music library (songs & playlists).
Obviously, you would still need the files themselves for this to be of any worth, but if you ever find yourself in the same situation you can use the .xml file to recreate iTunes as it was. Keep in mind that you must import the .xml file into iTunes for this to work, you cannot simply move it via the finder.

Transfer songs and library file from PC to Mac KEEPING them on external drive

I am struggling to find a definitive answer to this. I have all my files stored on an external hard drive on a PC.
I recently got a Macbook and want to transfer all my files to the new Mac.
I know that I will need a new Mac compatible external hard drive and that I will have to copy the files onto the new hard drive.
However I cannot find instructions on doing the transfer to the new Mac that explain doing this AND KEEPING the files on the external drive.
To clarify...I don't want to put them on the new Macs hard drive as I have around 300GB of music, I want to keep them on the external hard drive.
its probably very simple simple but am struggling to get a decent answer. have read loads of stuff that explain moving it to the mac hard drive ...buts thats not what I want to do!
thanks in advance

See Make a split library portable. A portable library can be stored entirely on an external drive and moved between Mac and Windows computers. iTunes takes a little longer to open the library the first time after each switch. If your drive is currently formatted to NTFS then you will need an additional driver to enable OS X to write to the drive, or simply clone the library to an HFS+ drive.
tt2

I am using a T61 ThinkPad with an external hard drive and my itunes library keeps disapearing but remains on the external drive. Any idea how to fix this so my music doesn't disapear all the time? It's a real drag pulling music back into iTunes each week.

I am using a T61 ThinkPad with an external hard drive and my itunes library keeps disapearing but remains on the external drive. Any idea how to fix this so my music doesn't disapear all the time? It's a real drag pulling music back into iTunes each week

In iTunes 11 uncheck the preferences setting in in the iTunes Preferences panel "Advanced > Copy Files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library"

Keep external drive awake

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for