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2018 Mac Mini USB Sleep settings - drives remain powered on

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dia3olik

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 14, 2007
100
18
Italy
Hey guys,
when I eject USB drives on my MM2018 the drives spindown after eject as expected,
but then they just spin up again (staying unmounted from the OS tho).
Never happened on my other Macs, is it happening on yours too?
Thx!
 
hey guys!
anyone???
same thing happens on an iMac too with the latest Mojave, did you guys know how to solve this?
Already tried energy settings with drive sleep on or off it's the same.
Thanks!
 
I have had this happen before, and what I usually do is put my Mac to sleep so the drive spins down again, and then I unplug it.

No idea why it happens, but it hasn't happened to me in awhile, running the latest Mojave.
 
Thanks Duncan, so now when you eject a drive from the finder it spindown and don't spinup again?
 
Which drives do you have that exhibit this behavior? I have a LaCie and Samsung that do not spin up again once ejected from my iMac.
 
dia3olik said:
Thanks Duncan, so now when you eject a drive from the finder it spindown and don't spinup again?
Click to expand...

On my two newer USB drives it now works properly. I have one very old drive that never spins down at all. Again, I just put the Mac to sleep after ejecting the drive, and then unplug the drive.
 
Could be the drive's controller board not "interacting right" with the Mini.
I've seen similar behavior with some drives on my own 2018 Mini.
This seems to be more likely on drives that don't have a physical on/off switch, but instead rely on the "presence of bus power" to turn them on/off (via some kind of internal switch or controller).

Solution (well, for me, it's "the solution", though others might not agree):
Once you dismount the drive, power it down -- this means pulling its power block out of the power strip if need be.
If it has a power switch, turn it off.
Or -- physically disconnect the USB cable.

Rant:
Whatever happened to "on/off" switches on peripherals?
It was easy to just reach back and "turn it off" when you didn't need it.
But they're mostly gone these days.
 
now I have an iMac 27" 5K 2019...same thing...do any of you know how to check if it's caused by some kernel extensions? I have a LaCie raid and I have their utility installed, wondering if it could be the culprit?
 
anyone? please help ;-)
maybe someone of you know how to check what's causing the drives to spin up again after ejecting
 
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