Anyone use "put hard disks to sleep" option?

[speekez]

Does anyone use the "put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" in the Energy Saver panel?

II do use both the "put the computer to sleep when it is inactive for" and the "put the display to sleep when the computer is inactive for"

I was just wondering if the "put hard disks to sleep" option puts more wear & tear on the hard drives.

FYI - I have my display energy saver kick in at 5 minutes, have my display go to sleep at 15 minutes, and have the computer go to sleep in half hour.

 

[NewbieNerd]

I assume that it's both about saving energy and about preventing a lot of needless disk spinning, but I don't know enough about the technology to know for sure. So here's hoping I'm right!

 

[killmoms]

It's mostly useful if you have multiple drives in your system that you aren't always accessing. If that's the case, OS X will spin down those hard drives after a period of inactivity. When you need something from them, it will spin them back up.

 

[FJ218700]

it's a give and take situation. I use it for my servers running multiple hard drives, ideally to prolong the life of the drives, but it also results in a delay in accesssbility (~ 3 sec) while the drives spin back up. I think it is worth the delay to not always have the drives spinning (less drive noise and less heat ( thus less fan noise (old G4 towers)).

 

[speekez]

I guess I will leave it clicked on then. It was clicked on by default anyway. I only have one disk at the moment, but will be adding some more disks in the coming months.

If it doesn't harm the disks any, then I guess no harm leaving it on

 

[Kosh66]

On my desktop, I don't allow the CPU or HD to sleep, but I do allow the display to sleep. I don't trust the sleep option for the CPU. The display is set to start the screensaver after 7 minutes and to sleep after 45 minutes.

On my laptop, I allow the CPU and HD to sleep and the display sleeps after 15 minutes.

 

[NATO]

I never use that option in OS X, preferring to leave the drives spinning 24/7 (except on my laptop when on battery power). I do however have my monitors turn off after 12 minutes of inactivity.

I remember looking up a Western Digital support page where the question of spinning down was asked and the answer given was that modern drives are designed to withstand being spun up and down several times per day without issue. However, if they're spinning up and down a lot, it's probably best to just leave them spinning.

 

[ljones]

I tried it, but the drives go to sleep at the weirdest times. So i turned it off. it's more of a pain than a convenience.

 

[bld44]

I have it currently enabled on my 2nd drive, but considering changing that. I don't access the drive much, but when I do, I use it in strange intervals and it is always spinning back up.

 

[NATO]

I have it currently enabled on my 2nd drive, but considering changing that. I don't access the drive much, but when I do, I use it in strange intervals and it is always spinning back up.

I may be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that there isn't a 'per drive' setting for spin-down, its either enabled for all your drives or its totally disabled. If true, I think that would be an area which OS X could be improved upon so that you can sleep drives which aren't accessed often and hence save energy.

 

[bld44]

I may be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that there isn't a 'per drive' setting for spin-down, its either enabled for all your drives or its totally disabled. If true, I think that would be an area which OS X could be improved upon so that you can sleep drives which aren't accessed often and hence save energy.

You're right. I only have two drives in my computer, so I've only seen the 2nd go to sleep. Could be an improvement if they let each drive do its own thing, which I'm sure is possible.

 

[tuartboy]

I actually signed on this morning just to post a thread about this.

I have a new MP with the stock 250 Gb drive and 2 extra 500 Gb hard drives and for the last few nights I have had it I have noticed an annoying amount of hard drive activity while idling. The hard drives are spinning up and down every few minutes and I am afraid of the wear and tear on the drives.

Last night I rebooted and made sure to leave no programs open that would cause the irregular activity and it still happened.

Would it be more damaging to the drives to leave spinning all the time?

 

[miniConvert]

Would it be more damaging to the drives to leave spinning all the time?

No.

OS X will automatically perform maintenance actions, so the drives will have to spin back up for those. As for other disk actions, well, I'm not sure, but it's perfectly fine to leave the drives spinning 24x7 if appropriate.

 

[tuartboy]

No.

OS X will automatically perform maintenance actions, so the drives will have to spin back up for those. As for other disk actions, well, I'm not sure, but it's perfectly fine to leave the drives spinning 24x7 if appropriate.

Well, the drives would spin up and down about every 3 minutes all night long. Far too often for simple cron jobs.

 

[speekez]

Well, the drives would spin up and down about every 3 minutes all night long. Far too often for simple cron jobs.

well, do you have the "put the hard drives to sleep" option clicked on or off?

 

[TheSpaz]

I have the same problem. My computer will not go to sleep, but one of my hard drives spins up and down all night long so for the time being (until I figure this thing out) I've set my computer to not sleep and always spin drives.