MANUALLY spinning down the hard drive/s?
I have a early 2004 G5.
I want to know if there is a way to MANUALLY (as is on demand) spin down the hard drive/s WITHOUT putting the computer to sleep.
As I recall this was a piece of functionality that was in the old pre OSX operating system but as far as we can see is no longer available (besides checking the "put the hard disk to sleep when possible" box in the Energy Saver system pref).
THX
RTM
Hi RTM,
All I can think of only comes close to your query: spinning them down sooner than the default ten minutes that you have to wait for when checking the "put the hard disk to sleep when possible" box in Energy Saver.
Set it to one minute, by running this Terminal command:
*sudo pmset -a disksleep 1*
(set it back to default ten minutes with this command:
*sudo pmset -a disksleep 10* )
Note that spinning HDs up and down and up and down all the time shortens their life.
I guess you need to spin them down as soon as possible because they dont wake up often in the way you use your Mac?
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How do I automatically spin down the hard drive to save power?
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Anyway, I'm just looking for ways to save on my electricity usage. Any ideas?If the HD is just used for storage, hdparm is your friend. with hdparm -S you can set the timeout until the disk spins down.
If its a system disk hdparm will work too, but the HD will spin up after 2 secs (or less, depending on your HD) again because of the OS accessing the disk (logs, journal etc). Laptop-mode-tools works very well on laptops because it automatically sets the journal-rewrite time, file-write-cache size and the time when new data gets written to the disk. If you are not reading anything or anything thats not in the cache, it works very well - but thats on laptops. I tried using laptop-mode-tools on my desktop, but without luck (yes, it detected that i wasnt using a laptop).
You could try using cpudyn with the cpu-idling stuff disabled (option -i 0). I know it has a feature that spins down a specific HD after a certain amount of time. But i don't know for sure if cpudyn automatically remounts the HD, so that it caches all the write activity (like laptop-mode-tools).
Good luck. -
Spinning down external hard drives
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I've requested my app be deleted from the AUR (it is stupid and redundant), and am posting this to the forum so the four people who use it know to switch :-)The drive will spin down if Energy Saver tells it do so in Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Energy Saver. I have found though, spinning down an external hard drive sometimes is not desired because Energy Saver may not be able to give back all the power the drive desires when it wakes up. This can lead to an improperly dismounted volume causing occasional directory damage. My suggestion is to simply dismount it, and leave Disk Utility up so you can mount it again. Disk Utility is in Applications -> Utilities folder.
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Is there a way in Mavericks to manually spin down a hard drive? I run my system, applications and store most of my data on a large SSD, but I have a 1TB HDD in the opitcal bay of my MacBook Pro. The HDD is not needed much, but it does spin at times more than needed. From an energy savings standpoint, I was wondering if there is a way in Mavericks or a widget to manually spin the drive down? Thanks!
Sorry, I meant to say the traditional platter 1TB HDD is in the standard Hard drive bay. I have the SSD in the optical bay.
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My Ipod Classic shows a red circle with a cross in the middle. I've completed diagnostic tests which have popped up, however any HP/FW/Hard Drive tests freeze the ipod, as if the hard drive won't spin. What do I do?
After holding down the Select and Play/Pause button, I was able to restart the Ipod and then it brought me to a Diagnositc test. I have tried doing both the Mannual and Annual test on the ipod however in each test, the ipod freezes on different access tests. The HP (headphones) test, shows the headphones are detected, but then if it tries to play a song to make sure they work it freezes and goes back to the red cross. I have looked at various other questions regarding the FW cable, however I don't believe i have such a cabel. Then the Hard Drive test freezes up and I can hear a ticking noise coming from the drive but it doesnt seem to be spinning. Alongside these test issues, any computer cannot see the Ipod when plugged in (including itunes). Therefore some tests for the USB drive cannot be completed. I do not recall dropping it badly, though I have dropped it previously. Does all this mean there is damage to the drive? Should I instead take it to an apple store?
Many ThanksThe stats look fine. Try the DFU Restore method shown in Corrupt iPod classic. It may pay to disable any anti-virus software and use the staged transfer method to reload data, assuming you get that far.
tt2 -
Why does the hard drive keep spinning up when in sleep mode?
When my iMac 27" is in sleep mode I have noticed that the hard drive spins up very regularly every 4 or 5 minutes. Also when placed in sleep, the monitor takes about 30 seconds to go black. It also wakes on its own for no apparent reason. No new software has been added, only normal updates, running Lion. Time machine backup is done every couple weeks.
Power or other problems related to unexpected system sleep, shutdown, lights or fans call for an SMC reset. Read all the steps.
Before Resetting the SMC
Try each of the following steps in this order before you reset the SMC. Test the issue after completing each troubleshooting step to determine if the issue still occurs.
Press Command + Option + Escape to force quit any application that is not responding.
Put your Mac to sleep by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Sleep. Wake the computer after it has gone to sleep.
Restart your Mac by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Restart.
Shut down your Mac by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Shut Down.
Resetting the SMC for Mac Pro, Intel-based iMac, Intel-based Mac mini, or Intel-based Xserve
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord.
Wait fifteen seconds.
Attach the computer's power cord.
Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
If the problems persist after performing the above read the following.
Open the Terminal app - it is in your Mac's Utilities folder and looks like this
Select the entire line that follows (triple-click to select it), select Edit > Copy, and then Paste it into the Terminal window:
clear; printf '\e[3J' && echo "**** Sleep/Wake events"; egrep -i 'eep\ cau|ake\ rea' /private/var/log/system.log; echo "**** Assertions"; pmset -g assertions
Copy the text of that entire window by selecting Edit > Select All, then Edit > Copy. Paste the text in a reply to this Discussion. -
I just want my computer to go to sleep on it's own, as the hard drive will spin for days unless I manually select "sleep" from the menu. The screen automatically does go to sleep at the preset 7 minute mark though, and ideas for a fix?
Nevermind, I found this answer, and to my total surprise, it worked!! I opened activity monitor, and all kinds of junk was running, so I closed a lot of stuff out, and now, my iMac goes to sleep like a good little computer! Here's the answer in case this question comes up in a search:
Re: iMac doesn't want to sleep
Nov 4, 2006 9:02 PM (in response to ParallelP)
If you have any applications running that can keep your iMac from sleeping. You can check in user(you)/application/utilities/Activity monitor. Just open Activity Monitor and you can see what's running. Just my 2 cents but if you check "put hard disks to sleep" in energy saver and have your screen turn off after 15 minutes since you used it. IMO that's a better way to go since you can schedule all the background things to happen when you don't need you Mac. Such as software update, spotlight indexing, idisk syncing, ect. I hope this helps, good luck.
2Ghz Intel Core Duo, Mac OS X (10.4.8)
iMac doesn't want to sleep -
Does shutting down and starting up wear out the hard drive faster?
does anyone know if shutting down and starting up the imac repeatedly wear out the hard drive faster? I had heard that repeated shutting down and starting up of the hard drive will wear out the hard drive faster. If this is true, is it better to put the imac to sleep and shut down only when you absolutely have to or when you will be gone for a while? (e.g., going on vacation or when moving the imac). The imac manual suggests that if you are going to use the imac within a few days to put it to sleep and shut it down if you are not going to use it for a few days. Is this advice just to save you time since you don't have to reboot or will this help prolong the life of the hard drive? Of course, keeping the imac on all the time might waste energy (not sure if sleep mode saves energy). But since I use the imac practically everyday it may make sense to put it to sleep, especially if this will prolong the life of the hard drive. thanks
Good Morning,
In my experience there shouldn't be any unnecessary wear and tear on your hard drive from shutting down your computer unless you are doing an EXTREME amount of startup/shutdown cycles.
The average user should not put enough strain on the drive to even be noticed from normal startup/shutdown cycles.
Hope this helps!
David -
My old MacBook Pro displays the apple image on start up then hangs with the ball spinning continuously. Seems it cannot detect the hard drive. Can I start up holding down certain keys to bypass the problem. Running snow leopard and don't have a start up disk.
Try the procedures in this support article;
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
You may also use the original install disk. When you get to the point where the menu bar shows on top of the display, select Utilities. The open Disk Utility from the drop down menu and try to repair the disk.
Ciao. -
I have an older macbook pro and the hard drive is starting to go (making loud noises). i tried to back up to an external hard drive (my passport essential se) using time machine and the computer keeps shutting down. the same thing happens when just trying to save my pictures from iphoto to a flash drive. suggestions to complete backup please?
Sounds like you'll need to access that drive while it is not booted. You need to replace it anyway, so do that, then one way or another (ext enclusure, et), access it and copy files.
If you keep trying to boot it, you might kill it for good and not get your files, so just swap it out first. -
Ok, I have searched for months for an answer to this question to no avail, probably because no one has experienced it before. I am hoping however that you guys can help me figure this one out cause it is driving me nuts! Also, I am not entirely sure what section of the support I should put this under so if I stick it in the wrong place, I apologize.
Right now my problem is very simple. When I turn off my laptop, and then try to turn it back on, my internal hard drive disappears... and I get the blinking folder with a question mark on it. I have figured out something interesting however. I have an install disk with Ubuntu Linux on it. If I boot into that first, then RESTART the laptop, not shut down and turn back on, it reads the internal hard drive just fine and I can boot as if there is nothing wrong.
Second part to the problem... If I allow the laptop in either OSX or Windows to go to sleep (aka shut off the hard drive but the computer remains on), when I attempt to wake it up, I am greeted with the usual log in screen of whichever OS I am in, but is frozen and after a few seconds goes black and restarts the computer to find that... Surprise! The hard drive is gone
I have tried every trick in the book that I can think of, but can not seem to come up with a solution to the problem... I know when the problem happened and if anyone thinks that that will help them figure this out I will type everything I did up till, including the crash that caused this, and my attempted fixes, but I have class right now so only if you guys want it I will type all that out.
What I am currently running is:
2011 MacBook Pro 13in screen
4Gb of Ram
1TB internal Hard Drive
OSX 10.11.whatever the newest update is... just updated the other day again.
Windows 8.1 on BootCamp 5 (yea I know its not supposed to work but it does) again, fully updated
Ubuntu 13.10 (I think? Doesn't really matter, its just an install disk I use to boot the computer)
If there is anything else that you guys need me to provide, I can, just simply ask. I can provide as much info as is necessary.Sorry it took me so long to write back, But unfortunately this didn't help my issue.
My uncle and I did a lot of tests on this computer and have narrowed down the location of the problem a little bit.
We tried to first reset the SMC and the NVRAM as suggested, but the only thing that did was make the fans run on full tilt for the first session after restarting it for some reason. After that we tried re installing OSX over the OSX that was already on the system (not removing any of the files). This also didn't do anything but make refit stop working. Then we moved onto the next task at hand by removing the hard drive entirely and booting it as an external drive from one of the USB ports... as long as you booted it with the options key held down, it worked perfectly fine. Then we put an alternative hard drive into the computer and installed OSX on that. This time there was no trouble booting anything up. Everything seemed to work flawlessly. So we made a backup of my original drive (OSX, Windows, and all) onto an external hard drive and tested booting to it via USB. That again worked perfectly fine and booted right up with no problems. So after that we formatted the original hard drive and reinstated OSX. We then proceeded to transfer all the old files from the backup onto this new installation and LOW AND BEHOLD..... we were back to square one with it refusing to recognize the hard drive again.
So this basically told us that there appears to be something either wrong with the hard drive, or something got really screwed up in the software along the lines and by me copying all my old files back over, I just ended up bringing the screwed up file back over with it! (despite not copying over any settings of any kind) So I am still extremely confused as to what is going wrong... did some boot sector possibly get screwed up may be? -
I had a one month old Mac book pro and the hard drive fried! I was down loading a friends wedding pictures when it stopped working and started heating up. I plugged it in and turned it off as it was making a clicking noise. When I turned it back on the was a grey box with a question mark and nothing else. When I took my memory card out the pictures were gone. I took it back to best buy where I bought it and they said it was dead, needed a new hard drive and all my info is lost! Is there any way to get back those irreplaceable wedding pictures?
There are some data recovery programs (software). I would look into that for the images on the card. When files are deleted, the files are still there, just the headers are removed. That being said, a format of the card or new files written to the card can overwrite deleted files.
The physical hard drive could be thousands of dollars to forensically save, with no guarantee. -
I have a 15" MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (Early 2008) running OSX Lion 10.7.5.
I want to erase the Hard Drive, install Mountain Lion, and manually restore select applications and files.
Is there a known procedure to do this? Any tips or feedback?1. Make a backup, open App Store and purchase Mountain Lion. When its download finishes, close the installer and open Lion Diskmaker to create a bootable USB drive with Mountain Lion.
2. Press Option key while your Mac is starting, select the external drive and open Disk Utility.
3. Select Macintosh HD in the sidebar and erase the drive.
4. Close the window and install Mountain Lion -
my mac is running slow, the spinning beach ball constantly appears. it seems that when i am in the apple store with fast wifi its a bit better. genius at the apple store checked the hard drive, it's all fine. what can it be? can it be a software issue with the wifi?
also i noted that it has only been doing this since quite recently, before it was fine
please help!First, back up all data immediately, as your boot drive might be failing.
Step 1
This diagnostic procedure will query the log for messages that may indicate a system issue. It changes nothing, and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.
If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
syslog -k Sender kernel -k Message CReq 'GPU |hfs: Ru|I/O e|find tok|n Cause: -|NVDA\(|timed? ?o' | tail | open -ef
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key.
The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.
A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. Normally the command will produce no output, and the window will be empty. If the TextEdit window (not the Terminal window) has anything in it, stop here and post it — the text, please, not a screenshot. The title of the TextEdit window doesn't matter, and you don't need to post that.
Step 2
There are a few other possible causes of generalized slow performance that you can rule out easily.
Disconnect all non-essential wired peripherals and remove aftermarket expansion cards, if any.
Reset the System Management Controller.
Run Software Update. If there's a firmware update, install it.
If you're booting from an aftermarket SSD, see whether there's a firmware update for it.
If you have a portable computer, check the cycle count of the battery. It may be due for replacement.
If you have many image or video files on the Desktop with preview icons, move them to another folder.
If applicable, uncheck all boxes in the iCloud preference pane. See whether there's any change.
Check your keychains in Keychain Access for excessively duplicated items.
Boot into Recovery mode, launch Disk Utility, and run Repair Disk.
If you have a MacBook Pro with dual graphics, disable automatic graphics switching in the Energy Saverpreference pane for better performance at the cost of shorter battery life.
Step 3
When you notice the problem, launch the Activity Monitor application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Activity Monitor in the icon grid.
Select the CPU tab of the Activity Monitor window.
Select All Processes from the View menu or the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected.
Click the heading of the % CPU column in the process table to sort the entries by CPU usage. You may have to click it twice to get the highest value at the top. What is it, and what is the process? Also post the values for User, System, and Idle at the bottom of the window.
Select the Memory tab. What value is shown in the bottom part of the window for Swap used?
Next, select the Disk tab. Post the approximate values shown for Reads in/sec and Writes out/sec (not Reads in andWrites out.)
Step 4
If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out this step.
Launch the Console application in the same way you launched Activity Monitor. Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Select the 50 or so most recent entries in the log. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combinationcommand-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V). You're looking for entries at the end of the log, not at the beginning.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some personal information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting. That should be easy to do if your extract is not too long. -
I have a Macbook Pro that was slowing down. The HD was nearly full as I do a video work. I removed over 400gb of photos and video and it made no difference. I ran disk inventory x and that says that there is only 60gb on the hard drive but disk utility says there is still 430gb on the HD. How do I remove what DU says is still there.
ThanksYou may notice a difference in available space statistics between Disk Utility, Finder, and Get Info inspectors. This is expected and can be safely ignored. The Finder displays the available space on the disk without accounting for the local snapshots, because local snapshots will surrender their disk space if needed.
About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs
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