External Drive Churning?

[Hrothgar]

I've got a 6tb LaCie external drive connected to my late 2020 Mac Mini (intel). The LaCie is partitioned to hold backups of the mini and old file storage. I notice that the drive is constantly churning. But I can't think of why. For instance, I can hear it running now and it has been for a few minutes. But my Mac is not running any backups and not accessing any of the files on the LaCie.
I'm not sure it's a big deal, but it seems very odd.
Is there any way I can figure out what it going on with the LaCie? I've opened Activity Monitor, but it doesn't seem to help.

Thanks.

 

[Red Menace]

Spotlight indexing?

 

[Fishrrman]

WHAT FORMAT is the external drive?
This is important.

If it's APFS -- that can "chew up" a platter-based external drive. Excessive fragmentation, too much "disk thrashing" (what you call "churning").

Try reformatting it to HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format). I predict it will run better...

 

[Hrothgar]

It is APFS. When I tried to unmount it, I got a message that it was being used by one of the programs. But I have no idea what that could be.

Am I able to switch the format without losing the data? I'd rather not have to back it up and restore it again.

 

[MacCheetah3]

When I tried to unmount it, I got a message that it was being used by one of the programs. But I have no idea what that could be.

You can try using fs_usage and grep:

Mac OS X: Using fs_usage as a Troubleshooting Tool

www.macobserver.com

sudo fs_usage | grep disk[#]

To find the drive/partitions assignment/identity, go to Disk Utility, click on the drive or partition and look for Device: at the bottom-right of the details table.

For example, my external HDD is disk4. So, I’d use:

sudo fs_usage | grep disk4

Or focus on my Time Machine partition:

sudo fs_usage | grep disk4s2

Control + C or Command + . to cancel/stop the output

When I executed either of the two examples above, while doing a TM backup, the processes were:

• launchd
• kernel_task
• backupd
• storagekitd

I realize some of those do not narrow it down a lot. However, at least, you should be able to determine if whatever is accessing the drive is nothing to be concerned about.

 

[chown33]

You can use the lsof command in a Terminal window to find out which processes have which files open. This can lead to identifying the app, extension, etc. that's at fault.

This example will use the name "Volumes" to filter out only the processes that have something open on an external disk. If you use the name of your drive (or the name of a volume on the drive), then the output will be limited to only processes with something open on that drive or volume.

lsof | grep Volumes

The output will be a list that shows the process name, its pid (process id), owner, a few columns of typing info, and lastly the full path to the file or directory that's open.

If there are a lot of lines, you can save the output in a text file, then open it in TextEdit.app and scan it.

lsof | grep Volumes >~Desktop/output.txt

If you put 'sudo' before 'lsof' it will list all processes, not just the ones owned by the logged-in user.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Good suggestion @chown33 — I’m not familiar with all of the CLI tools. Your search string choice does not have the expected results though. When I run the command with Volumes, I am seeing external drive associations, such as:

/Volumes/Mac mini TM/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/D8D5CFA3-9473-4C26-912C-5C78ABE76127/0.indexPostings

…But also internal drive Spotlight file references, such as:

/System/Volumes/Data/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/2B94D905-6342-476C-A943-B90F8383F60F/live.4.indexGroups

And these results show when the external drive isn’t even active (spinning/accessing).

 

[chown33]

Good suggestion @chown33 — I’m not familiar with all of the CLI tools. Your search string choice does not have the expected results though. When I run the command with Volumes, I am seeing external drive associations, such as:



…But also internal drive Spotlight file references, such as:



And these results show when the external drive isn’t even active (spinning/accessing).

Sorry, I completely forgot about the System Integrity Protection effects on mounting volumes.

It will definitely be best to use the volume name of whatever volume isn't being ejected.

Possible work-around (please test)

lsof | grep Volumes | grep -v System/Volumes

 

[MacCheetah3]

Possible work-around (please test)

lsof | grep Volumes | grep -v System/Volumes

I didn’t get any results with that, including while a TM backup was in progress.

However, perhaps I am missing something. As a test, I did:

sudo lsof | grep "Volumes/Mac mini TM"

sudo lsof | grep Volumes/Mac\ mini\ TM

…Plus the following immediately before copying files to the Storage partition on that same external HDD:

sudo lsof | grep Volumes/Storage

sudo lsof | grep Storage

No results.

Shouldn’t I see the folder/files I was copying listed?

sudo lsof | grep Volumes

…Produced results, though not the specific files I was copying to Storage -- mainly just the similar System/Volumes/Data items again.

By the way, I tried with and without admin privileges.

 

[chown33]

I don't know why specific files wouldn't appear. Maybe they aren't open long enough. 'lsof' is a snapshot of a point in time. If that happens in the "gaps" when files aren't open, then they won't appear.

FWIW, the last 3 commands shown are 'lost', not 'lsof'. That could be auto-correct playing games, or maybe you really did type in 'lost', which isn't something I recognize.

 

[MacCheetah3]

FWIW, the last 3 commands shown are 'lost', not 'lsof'. That could be auto-correct playing games, or maybe you really did type in 'lost', which isn't something I recognize.

D’oh! Auto-correct most likely. I typed them here, not copy and pasted, then set them as code. I should have entered them directly in the code dialog. They were entered correctly in Terminal.

 

[phrehdd]

Make an investment. Get something akin to a Western Digital small footprint external driver or something like the Seagate backup type of drive. They have large enough versions. Copy your data on your thrashing drive to this lightweight external drive. Once completed, operate all you want on your thrashing drive.

As Red Menace offered up - indexing.
Other items are can also include overly full drives with serious fragmentation and so on.

Everyone has a different idea of what 'full' is on a drive. It does not mean 100 percent but an amount that has reach a point that more would diminish noticeably performance. This is referencing electro-mechanical drives not SSD. Lets say your drive is over 80 percent full, that could be problematic.

If you are not a tech-savvy person with hands-on experience, you might try making a copy of that drive to another then copy it back to your main drive. The process may seem of little value but what you can do is check that drive more thoroughly and not worry about the data. If you are confident, return the data and it will be near ordered and without fragmentation. This is a very old fashion way to do things and not just for homes, but in some instances for businesses by their IT support teams. Last - There are instances where thrashing occurs before drives finally give out. I have seen the latter long ago with some well-known SCSI drives in particular.

 

[Hrothgar]

So, I did a hard eject of the partition and unplugged the LaCie. When it plugged it back in, that one partition doesn't appear in the Finder sidebar. It does appear when I run disc utility. Not sure if this is an issue, but it's odd. Any suggestions for getting it back into the side bar?

 

[flashy-cat]

It is APFS. When I tried to unmount it, I got a message that it was being used by one of the programs. But I have no idea what that could be.

Am I able to switch the format without losing the data? I'd rather not have to back it up and restore it again.

Yes, simply format as HFS+ and your data will be left intact.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Am I able to switch the format without losing the data? I'd rather not have to back it up and restore it again.

Yes, simply format as HFS+ and your data will be left intact.

That’s not correct. Apple does allow converting from HFS+ to APFS (i.e., non-destructive) but not the other way around — which was a big gripe by many when Mojave and Catalina released.

How to revert/convert APFS to HFS/HFS+ without data loss?

Best methods to revert/convert APFS to HFS/HFS+ without losing data. Learn how to change APFS to Mac OS Extended HFS/HFS+ with APFS to HFS+ converter.

iboysoft.com

Even software that claims err implies it can do a conversion really creates a backup of the drive, reformats the drive, and then restores from the backup.

APFS to HFS+ Converter | Paragon Software Group

Fast and lossless conversion of APFS volumes into HFS+ volumes for your Mac by Paragon Software.

www.paragon-software.com

 

[MacCheetah3]

So, I did a hard eject of the partition and unplugged the LaCie. When it plugged it back in, that one partition doesn't appear in the Finder sidebar. It does appear when I run disc utility. Not sure if this is an issue, but it's odd. Any suggestions for getting it back into the side bar?

Does it mount in Disk Utility?

 

[Hrothgar]

So, I have four partitions on the LaCie. I was able to eject three of them, and it said one was in use - the one that has a Carbon Copy Cloner backup of my Mini hard drive. I used Disk Utility to unmount that partition. then I mounted it and erased the partition. I recloned my mini hard drive using CCC. And now I'm having the same problem -- the drive is churning constantly, and my Mini fan is running constantly. I am able to unmount the partition, but when I mount it, it starts churning again.

Any suggestions?

I don't quite understand what you all are saying above with the terminal commands. I typed in the commands, and nothing happened.