When do the hard drives go to sleep?

I have the default power saver settings on my Mac Mini with Yosemite. One of the options is “Put hard disks to sleep when possible” which I currently have checked. The trouble I have been trying to get through a ClamXav virus scan on my machine since yesterday and it seems that overnight (and possibly when I went out for a few hours) it stopped working, only to start up again when I woke my machine.
How many hours of inactivity does it take before the OS decides that the hard drives need to go to sleep?
And what sorts of activities does it recognize as ones that justify leaving the hard drives awake?

Usually drives will go to sleep after about 5 minutes of inactivity. And they should wake up automatically when they're accessed. A drive sleeping should not interrupt a scan; drive sleep/wake should be invisible to any applications (other than it being slow).
Honestly, though, I'd recommend unchecking that setting. It slows things down a lot when drives need to be accessed as spin-up time adds 5-10 seconds every time it wakes. Also, it's actually HARDER on the drives to continually power up and down than to just keep spinning at a constant angular velocity.

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When my screen goes to sleep and then the hard drive goes to sleep why won't the screen wake up?

I can repeat this 100% of the time. If I let the screen go to sleep (or I manually put it to sleep) and I shut the computer so the hard drive goes to sleep (or if the hard drive simply goes to sleep on the timer), when I open the Macbook Pro the screen will not wake up, although I think the hard drive does as the back light on the keyboard turns on. Any ideas on why this is happening. My computer is 4 weeks old...a bit frustrating. The best answer I have gotten is get a new one for Apple...or completely re-install the OS.
Jared

The reason why it's happening is not obvious and can't be determined without more information. The fact that you can reproduce the problem makes it a lot more tractable.
As a first step, boot in safe mode (shift key down at startup.) Can you reproduce the problem now? If so, note the time, then reboot as usual (not in safe mode) and look in the system log for error messages at the time the screen failed to wake up.

How to prevent the hard drive to go sleeping ?

My 20" core 2 duo imac is now running 10.4.8, on the standard 250Gb hd (from seagate : model ST3250824AS).
I remarked that after a few minutes of idling, it goes to sleep (I can easily hear it spinning down... and up when I need it or by itself a few moments later, with the spinning ball for a few seconds...)
I find this behaviour a bit stupid on a desktop computer and I would like to prevent it... I found something on the energy panel (preferences) and I unchecked the case allowing the harddrive to go to sleep as soon as possible.
No change.
I played with the SpindownHD applet (provided with the CHUD from developer tools) and the display is weird : it displays that Disks sleep after 180 minutes idle (which is perfect...) except that when the harddrive is idling, the display is changed to <<Disks sleep after 1 minutes idle>> and indeed the harddrive goes sleeping... The display then goes back to <<after 180 minutes idle>>...
Not a big problem, but weird, and, IMHO, plain stupid behaviour for a desktop harddrive, all the more so than I guess it will make the harddrive wear out more quickly...
Did I miss something obvious ?
phjo

This presumes that the hard drive itself doesn't have
a built-in sleep control that's independent and
unchangeable. However, even drives that do usually
have a sleep time of at least 15 minutes. That
doesn't sound like the case for your drive from what
you've posted.
It might well be that, in the sense that I'm not that sure that the delay after which the drive goes to sleep is less than 15 minutes. (Not everything done on the computer involves disk access, so when the hard drive went to sleep, it might have been idling for longer than what I thought.)
That being said, on seagate web site, the documentation about this model states that power management should be accessible through the operating system setup, so it looks like nothing is unchangeable...
Maybe power management in tiger does not comply completely with this drive specific controls... yet... Quoting the documentation : <<the standby timer delay is established using a Standby or Idle command.>>
but it appears that when the drive enters Idle status, for the internal seagate hard drive as well as the external firewall (when plugged in) the delay that is applied is 1 minute...
phjo

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.

Is the hard drive protected in sleep mode?

Can I transport a macbook pro in sleep mode with as much confidence as if the computer is turned off?

Only thing I can add to the excellent explanation is that you make sure the Mac is sleeping before jostling begins. When fully asleep, the white pilot light up on the front edge should be pulsing ("breathing"). When you first sleep it either via menu or by closing the lid, the pilot will turn on at full brightness (cause the screen and GPU have shut down) and will remain like that while the sleepimage is saved on the HDD. Only until "breathing" begins will the HDD have spun down and parked safely. How much time this will take depends on how much memory the Mac has (size of the sleepimage).

Something is polling the hard drive

After the harddrive is put to sleep, something is trying to poll the hard drive, this started after upgrading to 10.5 I heard a few others talking about this but no one posted a solution, anyone know a way to figure out what is the offending poller.
The harddrive is fine, no problems, what is happening is just an attempt to wake the hard drive from its sleep state, which should not be happening, I notice that it occurs on a regular basis, like every five minuets, when I manually close mail, and safari, then put the comp to sleep it stops.
So I thought ok, well then it must be mail.app, but I changed the settings, so that it would not check mail but every hour, and still the same issue.
So odd, to say the least, also check settings and found nothing unusual, I guess I could check logs, but not sure which ones would have the data I am looking for so any thoughts on this issue would be much appreciated, it get really nasty to hear the hd polling in the middle of the night, irritating...
definition polling of the harddrive=a hardware command to the harddrive which equates to an attempt to wake the hd, usually produces a noise not unlike the sound the hd makes when you manually place the comp into sleep mode.

Hi reelstuff1, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Any 3rd party plugins?
One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for action in Safe Mode...
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive
Reboot, test again.
If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it is some 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed.
Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.
Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...
/private/var/run/StartupItems
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchDaemons

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.

"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.

When mac wakes from sleep, the hard drive wakes but the screen is black

It's a problem I've been having off and on for quite a while with my ~2010 MacBook Pro. Sporadically/randomly, when I wake my computer from sleep or turn it on, the status light turns on and the hard drive makes sounds like it's on, but the screen stays black. The only way to get it on again is to manually hold the power button to shut if off and start it up again. Sometimes, the same issue reoccurs when I restart it and I have to manually restart it 5 or 6 times until it finally turns on normally, or I just get tired and give up. I've had everything done at the genius bar, from getting a new hard drive to running diagnostic testing. Nothing works. Any suggestions??

Reset SMC. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Choose the method for:
"Resetting SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own".

My imac takes about eight minutes to be fully functional after a cold start or from the sleep mode. The hard drive sounds like it has to go through a number of gyrations before being fully loaded. When I first bought the imac start up was much faster

My Imac takes about 8 minutes to be fully functional after a restart or awakened from the sleep mode. I can hear the hard drive making a number of gyrations before it's ready to let me do stuff. This is a 5 year old machine and was much faster in the beginning. Any suggestions?

Impossible to say however it may need more RAM, or if you have been turning it off every day it isn't given the opportunity to run it's daily, weekly and monthly maintenance. This is all done in the background in the middle of the night. I would recommend following the steps in 25 Ways to Speed Up Your Mac until you find the cause of your slowdown.

I get error 8062 when trying to copy files from one external hard drive to another. It starts out copying files, but after 10 minutes or so it stops and I get the error 8062. The hard drive tech support says the problem is in my Macbook Air.

I cannot copy my doc and photos and videos from one external hard drive to a second external hard drive -- both plugged in to my MacBook Air -- I get Error 8062 and the copying (which seemed to be going on for 10 minutes) stops and nothing gets copied.
As any Macbook Air owner knows, there is SO LITTLE storage capacity on the computer that you have to back up big files onto an external hard drive to avoid getting the other annoying error that says you have no more memory/storage capacity/whatever the proper term is, and you cannot use the computer.
Backstory: Before this error cropped up, I had backed up lots of files to an external drive and then removed them from my computer. But then the external hard drive got corrupted and I could not access my entire photo library. Had to pay $850 to Kroll Ontrack to recover those files. I have now bought 2 new external 1 Terrabyte hard drives as protection against another such disaster. BUT I cannot copy the files from the first hard drive where all my reovered files now sit, to another backup hard drive.
Feeling vulnerable. Please help.
SusaninNY

From the menu bar, select
 ▹ System Preferences ▹ Energy Saver ▹ Power Adapter
and uncheck the box labeled Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible, if it's checked.
If the drive has more than one interface (USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, eSATA), try one of the other interfaces.
Check that the data cable is securely inserted at both ends.
Try a different cable.
If you're connecting the drive through a hub, connect it directly to a built-in port on the Mac.
If you're connecting it directly, try a different port.
Disconnect all other devices on the bus, or as many as possible.
Test the drive with another Mac. Test another drive with this Mac.
If the drive is bus-powered, but has an AC adapter, connect the adapter.
Start up in Safe Mode and test.
If the drive doesn't work under any of the above conditions, and if another drive does work with the same Mac, then the drive has failed. You may be able to salvage the mechanism by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

I wish to recycle a number of macs. What happens to the hard drive when sent to Simms? Do I need to dismount them?

I wish to recycle a number of macs. What happens to the hard drive when sent to Simms? Do I need to dismount them?

Hard drives don't die then come back to life. Your drive never died. You just thought it did.
Obviously, if a hard drive isn't on and spinning its life is longer than when it is always on and spinning. If a hard drive in a laptop is idle it goes to sleep. That's normal because it prolongs battery life. Of course it hardly matters if the computer is running on AC power. The drive may still go to sleep but there's no impact on the battery.
If the computer is in use 24/7 then its useful life will be less than if it's in use only 12/7 or 8/7. This is both logical and obvious. But in the long run all computers or their hard drives fail. There is little you can do to prevent that. They are meant to be used. If your life is dependent on the computer being usable, then buy another one as a spare. Or at the very least buy a backup drive, keep the computer backed up, then you can worry less about drive failure.

I have an iMac G5, and the screen goes to sleep as it should, but the hard drive only does this manually. How can I fix this?

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

Upgraded the Hard drive, now sleep light and infared is not working

I upgraded the hard drive on MacBookPro3,1
with Hitachi 320GB, 5400 RPM hard drive.
I quadruple checked the connections to see if I missed
anything but the sleep light is not coming on when the machine is at sleep
and infrared is not showing up on the SystemProfiler -> USB
Any advice on what to do.

Oh I forgot to mention that the new hard drive is also
have clicking noise of parking the head that
everyone is complaining about. I thought only 7200 rpm
drives were effected.

When do the hard drives go to sleep?

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