Spinning down an external drive

I've just attached a 300GB external drive to my mini, and I noticed it doesn't spin down like the internal drive. Is the energy setting down say drives(s) but I don't think it working. Anyone know a way of tell the exteranal drive to sleep?

I just added a firewire drive to my mini as well, and at first I had my system preferences, energy saver set to NOT put the hard disk to sleep when possible...and I found that my new ministack fan is VERY loud compared to my mini...so I checked the box, and at least when I'm not actively using the firewire dirve, I get some peace!
once that box, in the energy saver tab of the system prefs, was checked...the drive does spin down...

Similar Messages

  • 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?

  • WRT160NL: Automatic spin-down of external USB hard disks?

    Hello,
    do external hard disks automatically spin down after a period with no access/use when connected with the USB port of the WRT160NL?

    In reference to your post could you please let me know that when you say "spin down" do you mean that does the hard drive goes into sleep mode when it is not in use?
    Did you try to connect another hard drive and check whether it is the same case or not?

  • How do I automatically spin down the hard drive to save power?

    I have searched for this in the wiki and the forums, so if I've missed something, please point it out to me, but is there a way to have Arch automatically spin down hard drives and/or suspend the machine to ram to save power? I'm not really interested in the full suspend to disk because I don't think my BIOS will do a wake on lan, and I'm trying to run a home server here.
    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).
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  • Spinning down external hard drives

    A while back I wrote a little app called sumount, for safely unmounting usb hard drives.  While try to make it work a little more reliably, I came across hd-idle.  Hd-idle does a fantastic job, much better than my little hacky script.
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    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.

  • Spin down / spin up External HD

    Morning all,
    I'm hoping someone can help me out on a request.
    I currently run four external HD's at home, each with there own tasks and storage needs. I have set (using pmset in Terminal) my discs spin down times to 5 mins rather than 10, so these sleep quicker than normal when not used. I'd like to be able to spin down / spin up these disc's on instruction, rather than waiting the 5 mins.
    I have put together Applescripts which I then build into Automator which I can run from Finder, and would like to have a simular script to spin down / up the drives on instruction.
    I'm very new to writing scripts so this maybe something simple, but I just can't find a solution. Anyone got any ideas ?
    Many thanks in advance.
    Neil Holmes.

    Sorry, I misunderstood you to already have the commands you needed for pmset, so I didn't look too closely at that command.
    What I have determined is that you don't have the ability to force the disk to spin down immediately - but rather, as you have already discovered, to set the idle duration before it will spin down; the minimum being one minute. (I also noticed that to make a setting stick you need administrator permissions, so I have included that syntax here.)
    I am not sure if this gets you any further forward, but the AppleScript syntax to spin down after one minute idle would be*:
    do shell script "pmset -a disksleep 1" user name "<adminuser>" password "<adminpass>" with administrator privileges
    and setting to never spin down would be*:
    do shell script "pmset -a disksleep 0" user name "<adminuser>" password "<adminpass>" with administrator privileges
    I am probably being stupid here, but wouldn't it be dangerous if you were able to spin down the disk on command?
    *In each case, open Script Editor, cut-n-paste the text between the lines and amend for your username and password - retaining the double quotation marks, but not the braces - and click run.

  • Safari waits for external drives to spin before showing content (chrome does not)

    Why?  And more importantly how to stop that?  I think it's always been that way but since installing lion i decided to switch back to safari over chrome because i like the trackpad gestures.  Chrome loads content regardless of external drives powered down or not. 
    Same stupid behaviour with the dictionary... Why on earth does the dictionary need to spin up all my external drives to give me a definition?
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    This must be a bug, because I'm observing the exact same behavior. Lion thinks it needs to spin up the external drives for the same reasons, and sometimes before displaying a dialog box.

  • Manually spin down hard drive

    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.

  • UPS Energy Saver on MacBook Pro for External Drives

    A search here has shown this topic come up before -- such as at https://discussions.apple.com/message/1886738#1886738 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/8162836#8162836 -- but I can't find a resolution, so I'm bringing it up again.
    I have multiple FW drives connected to my MacBook Pro. The MBP is connected to an APC Back-UPS RS 1200. OSX does not make the UPS Energy Saver autoshutdown preferences available on the MBP, the reasoning being that a laptop shouldn't need UPS autoshutdown because it has its own battery which is likely to run for far longer than the UPS would.
    That's all well and good for the MBP itself, but it doesn't account for the multiple FW drives which are attached to it for backups and other purposes. In the event of a power outage, without UPS autoshutdown, the UPS will run down, and the drives will abruptly power off, exposing them to potential data loss and damage.
    It's also not a solution to suggest that I manually power things down once there's a power outage, because the power can go out while I'm away for more than the few minutes of UPS battery back up time. The only real solution is to have UPS autoshutdown available on all portable machines. Unless and until Apple offers a (surely very simple) OS update to make that happen, I'm still interested in a solution.
    APC's own software for autoshutdown stopped being updated long ago, so there is no version compatible with Snow Leopard.
    The only potential solution I've found so far is http://www.apcupsd.org/ -- but its documentation is overwhelming and it appears that it may need other supporting software, a fair amount of Terminal usage, etc., all making it not very user-friendly for the very simple usage I'd want to make of it.
    Does anyone know of any other solutions, software that can run on a MBP to add UPS autoshutdown functionality?
    Re: Apcups, is anyone using it successfully on a MBP? If so, does anyone know if the version listed here -- http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/Apcupsd.shtml -- is a simple application that I can easily install and configure like regular Mac apps? If yes, then I'll likely be very happy with no need for the following question. If no, can anyone provide simple instructions to set up Apcupsd to do what I want?

    "You are not doing anything on the computer so no files should be writing to the drives."
    Big assumption there. With today's notebooks so capable of acting as desktop substitutes, they are often left running unattended to complete demanding tasks overnight or while the user does other things.
    To be able to suspend such activities and gracefully power down an external drive or drives in the event of a power outage, the Mac would have to have instructions from each third-party application or process that is running about how to interrupt its activity safely and without jeopardizing the integrity of whatever hard disk directories are in use. Then it would need to unmount the drive(s) and, if they were bus-powered drives, turn off the power to each of them at the port to which it was connected. I bet it would be possible for all app developers to write such instructions into their apps' code, but where's the incentive for them to do so? This isn't a feature that most users would gladly pay extra for, I suspect, and the cost of adding it to apps that don't have it now and testing it for reliability and proper function under all conceivable circumstances would not be trivial.
    If the drive(s) were AC-powered, the computer wouldn't be able to power them down itself -- the UPS would have to do that, or simply leave them on and power them until its battery was depleted or the AC was restored. It wouldn't matter which happened as far as the drives and their contents were concerned, because once the computer stopped using them, powering them off would be safe at any time.

  • USB3.0 enclosure won't spin down when ejected or when Mac sleeps

    Hi,
    I just purchased two different USB3.0 2.5'' SATA enclosures to replace USB2.0 enclosures that I currently use.
    In both cases, the drive I have inserted has refused to spin down when the drive was ejected, or when the Mac it was attached to went to sleep.  I have never had this issue with USB2.0, FireWire400, FireWire800 or eSATA drives attached to these Macs.
    I've used the USB3.0 enclosures on two different Macs, one a Mac Pro, the other a MacBook Pro.  One runs Mountain Lion, the other Mavericks.  Both only have USB2.0 ports.*
    Is this a noted bug with USB3.0 drives being used on USB2.0 ports?  I can't find any evidence that it is.
    Comments on this would be welcomed, because otherwise I can see myself trawling through Amazon's range of USB3.0 enclosures until I find one that works properly - probably the most expensive
    * The Mac Pro will shortly have a PCIe USB3.0 card, hence the enclosures, but this won't help matters on my MBP.

    Received the PCIe USB 3.0 card today and was able to test the enclosures with it.  In this case, the drive still fails to spin down when ejected.  So, it's not a USB 2.0/3.0 incompatibility.  The manufacturer advised a firmware update on the enclosure, but this didn't fix the issue.
    The enclosure did spin down when the USB 3.0-equipped Mac slept, but when I woke the Mac it re-mounted a previously unmounted volume on the device, so I suspect this was more a case of the PCIe card simply entirely losing connection with the drive on sleep, and re-recognising if on wake.  This tallies with information I've read regarding the odd and unpredictable performance of USB 3.0 on older Macs.

  • HDD Spin Down - Storage Spaces

    I would like to know if anybody got some kind of solution, or has gotten any further then me.  
    I want to build an application that can monitor you HDD energy consumption. (spin down status)  and the temperature. 
    I've figured out how to get the temperature from WMI   but the spin down status is proving to be kind of impossible.
    http://superuser.com/questions/400213/see-if-hdd-is-in-sleep-mode-for-windows
    I understand the only windows has control over the HDD spin down of each drive.   The problem is , if I have a drive that is spun down, and i start to try and get the information about its status using WMI,  the drive is spinning back up. 
    Also , i want to monitor Storage Spaces individual drive status.   If i'm making a storage space jbod, (no redundancy),  I would like to know the hdd spinning status of each drive.

    Maybe use a
    performance counter and if the disk is idle for some time then you should know it is spun down I suppose. Although you would have to test that. And the app probably requires admin privileges to access that info.
    Run below code with admin privileges. Select button1 to fill ListBox1. Selected item in ListBox1, select Button2 to fill ListBox2. Select item in ListBox2, select Button3 to fill ListBox3. Start timer.
    Stop timer to begin new selection process from ListBox1 for ListBox2 and ListBox3 or leave timer running if changing selection in ListBox3.
    Option Strict On
    Public Class Form1
    'Code used is from below two links.
    'Walkthrough: Retrieving Categories and Counters
    'http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2fh4x1xb(v=vs.90).aspx
    'A Quick Introduction to Performance Counters in Visual Studio 2012
    'http://www.codeguru.com/columns/vb/a-quick-introduction-to-performance-counters-in-visual-studio-2012.htm
    Private pc As PerformanceCounter
    Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
    Me.Location = New Point(CInt((Screen.PrimaryScreen.WorkingArea.Width / 2) - (Me.Width / 2)), CInt((Screen.PrimaryScreen.WorkingArea.Height / 2) - (Me.Height / 2)))
    Me.Text = "Performance Counters"
    ListBox1.Sorted = True
    ListBox2.Sorted = True
    ListBox3.Sorted = True
    Button4.BackColor = Color.Lime
    Button4.Text = "Start Timer"
    Timer1.Interval = 1000
    End Sub
    Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
    Dim myCat As PerformanceCounterCategory()
    Dim i As Integer
    ListBox1.Items.Clear()
    myCat = PerformanceCounterCategory.GetCategories
    For i = 0 To myCat.Length - 1
    ListBox1.Items.Add(myCat(i).CategoryName)
    Next
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    Dim InstanceNames() As String
    Private Sub Button2_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
    ListBox2.Items.Clear()
    If ListBox1.SelectedIndex <> -1 Then
    Dim mycat As New PerformanceCounterCategory(ListBox1.SelectedItem.ToString())
    InstanceNames = mycat.GetInstanceNames()
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    Dim Counters As New System.Collections.ArrayList
    Private Sub Button3_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button3.Click
    ListBox3.Items.Clear()
    Counters.Clear()
    If ListBox1.SelectedIndex <> -1 And ListBox2.SelectedIndex <> -1 Then
    Dim mycat As New PerformanceCounterCategory(ListBox1.SelectedItem.ToString())
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    For Each counter In Counters
    ListBox3.Items.Add(counter.CounterName)
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    End Sub
    Private Sub Button4_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button4.Click
    If Button4.Text = "Start Timer" Then
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    Button4.Text = "Stop Timer"
    Timer1.Start()
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    Button4.BackColor = Color.Lime
    Button4.Text = "Start Timer"
    Timer1.Stop()
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    End Sub
    Private Sub Timer1_Tick(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
    RichTextBox1.Text = ""
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    pc = New PerformanceCounter()
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    pc.InstanceName = ListBox2.SelectedItem.ToString
    pc.CounterName = ListBox3.SelectedItem.ToString
    RichTextBox1.AppendText(pc.CounterHelp.ToString & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "RawValue = " & pc.RawValue.ToString & vbCrLf & "NextValue = " & pc.NextValue.ToString)
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    End Class
    La vida loca

  • HD spin down time

    In macos9 it was possible to change the amount of time before the HD spins down, but in 10.4 there is only the option to spin down when possible. Even though I can change this setting with pmset in terminal, is there a reason why I should leave it alone? Usually when apple sets something, it is for a good reason.

    I believe the factory set time is ~10 minutes but everything suggests this is an arbitrary figure.
    I can see no harm in adjusting the time, as long as it's a reasonable adjustment - i.e. setting it too low would cause unnecessary wear and tear on the drive as it spins up and down constantly as you're using it. Set it too high and the drive will be spinning when it doesn't need to, consuming your battery. If you're plugged into the mains, and waiting for the drive to spinup after idling for a few minutes is annoying then certainly extending the time would be a good solution.
    Repeated spin-up and spin-down of the drive is presumably worse for it's health than it spinning constantly or not at all, although I'm sure you'll find arguments for and against this.
    If you don't want to change the setting in terminal, I think Cocktail lets you adjust this.
    Rich

  • T440p ultrabay HDD not spinning down

    My T440p has the Lenovo ultrabay caddy containing an HDD that never spins down and I've not idea how to make it obey the Win8 power settings that specifiy drives spin down after 20 minutes idle. Clearly that setting is for the main bay drive only (which in my case is an SSD). 
    Can anyone point me in the right direction? At present I see absolutely no way of spinning down the ultrabay drive short of turning the machine off. 

    Hi,
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    That one got me on my T420.  The slideshow gadget was accessing my photos - on the HDD so it couldn't spin down.
    Z.
    The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc.  The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog
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  • Attached disk spin down

    Anybody figure out how to have the attached USB drives spin down when not in use? I'm guessing it will have to be a new firmware fix... Otherwise, I guess Apple will be OK with buying everybody new disks next year... works for me..

    There are multiple threads discussing this issue. One of them is "Any idea whether the AE spins down USB hard drives?"

  • External hard drive spinning down (and up) on it's own

    I thought my 5 month old external 1tb dual drive was dying at first, but now am seeing a pattern. There is a forum over at macrumors about this. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=445690
    I always make sure in my energy settings i have spin down external drives unchecked, because it's known that spin downs and ups can cause drives to fail sooner. Yet I now find my external drive spinning down whenever it's not in use while I'm sitting at my computer, and i hear it spin up at the most random times, even when i'm not using my computer. sometimes in the middle of the night. This did not happen in tiger.
    It's connected by firewire 800. At first I thought it was time machine but others in the macrumors forum claim it isn't that. I almost think its network activity. I'm considering using an applescript to access the drive every 5 or ten minutes automatically yet not do anything just to see if this stops it from spinning it down. I do consider this an annoyance and would hope apple will figure out what it is very soon, before it causes any detriment to the life of my expensive drive.

    did you ever find a fix for this?
    my ext FW800 drives constantly spin down, then when i do something later i get the beachball until they spin back up

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