Set sleep time for multiple hard drives

I have 2 internal hard drives on my mac, one SSD boot drive and an HDD for media.
I would like to have the HDD go to sleep when it is not in use (i.e. when I am not using itunes) which is most of the time.
I have energy saver set to sleep drives when possible, and I have used CHUB Spindown HD to set the sleep time to 7 minutes. As far as I understand though, sleep time applies to both drives (i.e. if one drive is running then it wont sleep the other). This would explain why my HDD always shows active.
Is there way to set sleep times separately for separate drives?
Thanks

Obviously, spin down doesn't apply to SSD's but for others the key phrase is "when possible." Some (usually external) drives ignore system settings completely & spin up or down according to their own internal logic. Typically, some of them automatically spin down after an internally set interval of inactivity & this is cannot be changed. Less typically, some spin up any time they are accessed, even if no actual read or write is requested, usually as a result of how proprietary energy saver features are implemented.
This should not apply to drives Apple has supplied as original equipment, or to almost any "raw" internal drive. However, certain operations keep drives spinning or spin them up, thus resetting the spin down timer, & it it isn't always obvious what they are. With your settings, if you leave the Mac alone for while, does internal never spin down? (IOW, can you hear it running without using any command to check on that?)

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"Disk Activity" monitor for multiple hard drives?

Is there something like "Disk Activity" in the Activity Monitor utility to show which hard drive is accessed? I put a SSD in my Mac Pro but it occasionally hesitates for a few seconds as if it's accessing a file on one of the other three (slower) hard drives. I want to see a list of files that it needs that aren't on the SSD, so I can move them over and speed up my computer, or remove the extra hard drive eventually.

Yes, it's possible.
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Message Edited by Joshx61 on 12-20-2007 06:46 PM

Re: link posted by RealBlackStuff - that article from 2006 is not talking about the drives with built-in full-disk encryption that are now an option on some thinkpads.
Here's an article about the drives from when Hitachi (and Seagate) launched them just a few months ago:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/08/30/35TC-drive-encryption_1.html
Unfortunately, it doesn't provide as many details on the devices as I would like but it's a decent overview. (I still wish Lenovo would better document how to use the device and exactly what it protects against.)
Message Edited by Joshx61 on 12-31-2007 09:48 AM

Swapping multiple hard drives for Time Machine backups

I would like to always have one external hard drive attached to my iMac for Time Machine backups, and another external hard drive off site - periodically swapping the two. The though is that if there is fire or theft, it won't help to have a hard drive onsite attached to the computer, because both the iMac and the hard drive could be lost.
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B

Multiple Hard drive how to customize Time machine backup

i know we can do mutiple HD back up using timemachine .
But-
is there way i can costomize what to back up for each hard drive?
because-
im back up 2 diifferent hard drives.
my computer is almost 4TB to fully back up.
i have
4TB External HD
and Apple airport time captule 3TB.
looks like i have to do exact ONE Setting ( Option) for both HD.
is there anyway i can do timemachine back up different setting
for two different Hard drives?
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1st drive 4TB back up fully
2nd drive back up ony music and movie
ONLY using timeachine so always scheduled to be back up. and i can go back using timemachine...
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You have a lot of data to protect. With that much data you may want to consider cloned backups instead of Time Machine backups. You would need at least one backup hard drive for each live hard drive. Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) and Super Duper! (SD) are good applications to use.
Closing backup techniques are covered here.
Most commonly used backup methods:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031
From your description you appear to be storing as single copy of some of your data (music and movies) on the Time Capsule 3 TB drive. If so, that is not a good idea. If that drive crashes you will lose that data, even if there is a copy of it in the Time Machine backup because the Time Machine backup and the live data are on the same drive.
So I suggest you reorganize your large live data onto external hard drives that are not the 3 TB Time Capsule drive and then create a backup drive for each external live drive and run CCC or SD to clone them. You can continue to backup the internal drive to the Time Capsule but, in addition, I would make a cloned copy of it on external backup an external hard drive.
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Once I upgraded to ML, I'm now finding that my Seagate Free Agent external hard drive is no longer being backed up by Time machine. Do I have to wait for Seagate to update their drivers for this hard drive?

Once I upgraded to ML, I'm now finding that my Seagate Free Agent external hard drive is no longer being backed up by Time machine. Do I have to wait for Seagate to update their drivers for this hard drive?

I tried your suggestion, and it's been giving me the message "Preparing for Backup" for the past 8 hours. Does this mean TM is backing up my hard drive? I'll give it a few more hours, but if nothing else happens, I'm not sure what else to do. I'm not sure if there are any new external hard drives that are compatible with ML yet.

Time Machine with multiple hard drives

I use a very large external hard drive for time machine. I back up to this time machine, the two hard drivs that are inside my macbook pro, 512GB ssd, and 250GB SSD that is in the optical drive. I then backup a 1TB portable hard drive which holds all my movies and then I backup another 1Tb portable hard drive which holds all my "reserve" files, which means they are files that are no longer important to be on my computer. Old pictures, music, etc.
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I have used Time Machine before to restore my system. But never since I have started adding extra drives for Time Machine to backup.
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well superduper is FREE, CCC isnt.........CCC can do the daily updates etc,. Superduper DOES NOT. the CCC and Superduper CLONES are bootable.......so, if your HD crashes, you can throw in the CLONE, and youre back and running in mins, rather than hours etc .
You should NEVER consider a backup a "backup", ........2 copies is 1, and 1 is none.....always have 2 copies of important files / pics etc etc,......... DECADES of work have been lost by people who thought their stuff was safe because they had a (meaning 1) backup.
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superficially time machine is simpler, "smack a button and everything backs up".......in REALITY however when it "all goes up in flames"................the pro method (and my method) is QUICKER and more reliable by far to get down and running.
Ive restored other peoples from total crash and burns via Time machine.......and "my" way............my way always ends up faster by a mile. Also personal / work etc files are kept autonomous to the system data / programs OS,.....as it logically should be.
Time machine is the fastest incremental backup........but its as slow as paint peeling if you need it in case of a TOTAL CRASH.......wherein a bootable clone can be thrown in , in less than 20 mins.

Insert multiple images in one slide and setting dsiplay time for each

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Does Time Capsule hard drive sleep? Do USB hard drives connected sleep?

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Check out:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6862728#6862728
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First time using external hard drive for backup of computer....

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Wiki: Using multiple hard drives, LVM & encryption

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Would you improve this article anywhere?
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mwmmartin wrote:
I have a 1 TB hard drive; but I have a 500GB and 250GB usb external hard drives.
Wouldn't it be cool if I could make the two external hard drives a RAID drive and use Time Machine to use all the 750GB of external memory to do my backups???
You can, but I would +*strongly recommend against+* it. See +Concatenated RAID+ in the Help for Disk Utility.
There are several potential problems:
Depending on how much data is on your 1 TB drive, 750 GB may not be enough to back it up. See #1 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
To set up a +Concatenated RAID+ set, both drives will be erased.
When (not if) either drive fails, you'll lose all the data on both.
Both drives must be connected any time you do a backup or want to browse your backups.
Especially with USB, if one drive wakes from sleep, or spins up, quickly enough, but the other one doesn't, the backup may fail and/or your backups may be corrupted.
For now, it looks like my only solution is to go buy a bigger external hard drive and spend more money,,,
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Multiple Hard Drive Failures in 2 months on 2 MacBook Pros

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I now have my fourth hard drive in 2 months and I do not want a fifth. In fact, the first computer may have failed three times. At this point I don't remember. The Geniuses at the Apple Store are stumped so I'd appreciate any input. What the heck is going on here?
My theories
1. Simple bad luck
2. A file in iTunes, iPhoto or an Office, iWork, pdf...... is causing the failures
3. Restoring Office from Time Machine is killing it.
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Dunno about your hard drive issue.
However, everything you list in number seven are definite no-no's. All of them, except power surge, will cause heat related problems.
Have a nice day.
Boyd
Message was edited by: Boyd Porter

Is it possible to use multiple hard drives with iphoto?

I am pretty new to Mac's so bear with me, I used to use multiple hard drives on my pc with my photos seperated by catagory in different hard drives. Is it possible to run iphoto with multiple hard drives without the photos loading onto my Imac? If so, How do I set it up. I have tried importing to a external drive, but when I check the file path of the photos it shows my Imac hd in the address. I seriously dont know why I cant just add the external hard drive as a library and have Iphoto work, Help

There are instructions - and not the caveats - on how to do what you want below.
However, you'e not quite grasping iPhoto:
I used to use multiple hard drives on my pc with my photos seperated by catagory in different hard drives.
When you do this, you're using the Finder (or file manager) to categorise the photos. All well and good, but why? That's exactly iPhoto's job. iPhoto is a database designed to help you manage your pics - including categorising them.
Anyway:
*How to do it:*
Simply go to iPhoto Menu -> Preferences -> Advanced and uncheck 'Copy Files to the iPhoto Library on Import'.
*What Happens:*
Now iPhoto will not copy the files, but rather simply reference them on your HD. To do this it will create an alias in the Originals Folder that points to your file. It will still create a thumbnail and, if you modify the pics, a Modified version within the iPhoto Library Folder.
*Some things to consider:*
1. Importing and deleting pics are more complex procedures. You have to to put the files where they will be stored before importing them. When you delete them you'll need to remove the files from the HD yourself.
2. You cannot move or rename the files on your system or iPhoto will lose track of them on systems prior to 10.5 and iPhoto 08. Even with the later versions issues can still arise if you move the referenced files to new volumes or between volumes.
3. Most importantly, migrating to a new disk or computer can be much more complex.
4. *Because iPhoto has no tools for managing Referenced Files, if, for some reason, the path to the photos changes then you could find yourself resolving aliases for +each photo in the Library+ one by one.*
My own opinion:
I've yet to see a good reason to run iPhoto in referenced mode unless you're using two photo organisers
If disk space is an issue, you can run an entire iPhoto Library from an external disk:
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
If you're concerned about accessing the files, There are many, many ways to access your files in iPhoto:
*For Users of 10.5 and later*
You can use any Open / Attach / Browse dialogue. On the left there's a Media heading, your pics can be accessed there. Command-Click for selecting multiple pics.
Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
You can access the Library from the New Message Window in Mail:
Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
*For users of 10.4 and later* ...
Many internet sites such as Flickr and SmugMug have plug-ins for accessing the iPhoto Library. If the site you want to use doesn’t then some, one or any of these will also work:
To upload to a site that does not have an iPhoto Export Plug-in the recommended way is to Select the Pic in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export and export the pic to the desktop, then upload from there. After the upload you can trash the pic on the desktop. It's only a copy and your original is safe in iPhoto.
This is also true for emailing with Web-based services. However, if you're using Gmail you can use iPhoto2GMail
If you use Apple's Mail, Entourage, AOL or Eudora you can email from within iPhoto.
If you use a Cocoa-based Browser such as Safari, you can drag the pics from the iPhoto Window to the Attach window in the browser.
*If you want to access the files with iPhoto not running*:
For users of 10.6 and later:
You can download a free Services component from MacOSXAutomation which will give you access to the iPhoto Library from your Services Menu. Using the Services Preference Pane you can even create a keyboard shortcut for it.
For Users of 10.4 and later:
Create a Media Browser using Automator (takes about 10 seconds) or use this free utility Karelia iMedia Browser
Other options include:
1. *Drag and Drop*: Drag a photo from the iPhoto Window to the desktop, there iPhoto will make a full-sized copy of the pic.
2. *File -> Export*: Select the files in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export. The dialogue will give you various options, including altering the format, naming the files and changing the size. Again, producing a copy.
3. *Show File*: Right- (or Control-) Click on a pic and in the resulting dialogue choose 'Show File'. A Finder window will pop open with the file already selected.
If you really want to spread your photos across volumes like this, Aperture would be a better fit.
Regards
TD

Scheduling backup for external hard drive?

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http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/
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Set sleep time for multiple hard drives

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