External USB Hard Drive spins up/down all the time

[matt_stl]

A colleague of mine swears by the

sudo pmset -c spindown 0

command. Giving that a try today.

This command after a reboot seems to have fixed the spinning down issue for me on my Seagate Backup+ Hub that was spinning down after less than 1 minute of idle time. I ran this command then rebooted and my drive has been on and quickly accessible since the previous night with no spinning down that I have noticed. Running a Mac Mini M2 Pro Ventura 13.3.

 

[rowlands]

This command after a reboot seems to have fixed the spinning down issue for me on my Seagate Backup+ Hub that was spinning down after less than 1 minute of idle time. I ran this command then rebooted and my drive has been on and quickly accessible since the previous night with no spinning down that I have noticed. Running a Mac Mini M2 Pro Ventura 13.3.

I don't have a solution, but just wanted to say that "spindown" and "disksleep" are the same thing. I checked it out because I was unfamiliar with "spindown".

disksleep - disk spindown timer; replaces 'spindown' argument in 10.4 (value in minutes, or 0 to disable)

 

[midcity]

This command (as per "matt_stl"): "sudo pmset -c spindown 0" seems to work so far. I bring my laptop to two different locations. And while on one location (where I ran the script 3 weeks ago) it has prevented my drives from going to sleep, it doesn't work on my second location. However, I'm on the second location now, and just ran the script again. Hoping it will go into effect here now as well. (assuming the drives in question have to be connected for it to work?)

 

[midcity]

This command after a reboot seems to have fixed the spinning down issue for me on my Seagate Backup+ Hub that was spinning down after less than 1 minute of idle time. I ran this command then rebooted and my drive has been on and quickly accessible since the previous night with no spinning down that I have noticed. Running a Mac Mini M2 Pro Ventura 13.3.

thanks. worked!

 

[MistD]

After running those commands, Did you guys tried to put MacOS to sleep with HDDs connected and then wake it back up to check if the problem is fixed ?

I ran those commands in the past and it didn’t do anything for me. Whenever the Mac went to sleep (with external HDDs ON and connected) after waking it up the whole ordeal started again …

I didn’t try them on Ventura yet …

 

[KevinMP]

I have exactly the same experience as MistD. I read many "solutions" in this thread that require the step of rebooting. In my experience, what fixes the problem is not the magic words you type in the terminal but the fact that you reboot the Mac; the problem will return the next time the CPU goes to sleep. I never voluntarily sleep the Mac and I log whenever it does so involuntarily. In 100% of the cases the problem returns after it wakes up, until I next reboot.

If anyone has a solution that survives the next sleep period, please contradict us.

[Ventura 13.3.1, though this has been the same since 11.0]

 

[MistD]

In my experience, what fixes the problem is not the magic words you type in the terminal but the fact that you reboot the Mac

. In 100% of the cases the problem returns after it wakes up, until I next reboot.

If anyone has a solution that survives the next sleep period, please contradict

Exactly … this !

The issues occurs after waking up from sleep and only a reboot (or cold start) will fix it …… until the next sleep cycle, when you start all over again.

I may speculate that this is a known bug since the Apple silicon inception and i wonder why they didn’t fix it already.

Maybe it is hardware architecture related and they can’t address it.

I was reading on WD (western digital) forums about users who contacted WD support about this and were told it is a Mac OS bug , later confirmed by Apple Support itself.

 

[steve123]

If anyone has a solution that survives the next sleep period

I suggest a temporary work around would be to disable sleep until Apple fixes the problem. Unfortunately Apple has a bad track record with power management issues related to sleep. My Mac Pro 6,1 has struggled in the past with kernel panics coming out of sleep. They did eventually fix the problem but it took quite a while.

 

[midcity]

This command after a reboot seems to have fixed the spinning down issue for me on my Seagate Backup+ Hub that was spinning down after less than 1 minute of idle time. I ran this command then rebooted and my drive has been on and quickly accessible since the previous night with no spinning down that I have noticed. Running a Mac Mini M2 Pro Ventura 13.3.

thanks. worked!

ACTUALLY: This solution only works for a while. For a couple of weeks I had no issues, but now the problem is back again. Not sure what changed except I did unplug the laptop from everything, to go on a trip and when I came back, the problem returned. Same configuration. M1 16" laptop. I use Caldigit hub, but the issue prevails even without using the hub, plugging hard drive directly into the computer. I have the same issue happening to multiple drives. When it got really bad, the drive would randomly unmount as well. But when I ran the script, it stopped happening. And everything worked as it should. The screen would go to sleep, but not the hard drives. I will try to run the script again.

 

[midcity]

After running those commands, Did you guys tried to put MacOS to sleep with HDDs connected and then wake it back up to check if the problem is fixed ?

I ran those commands in the past and it didn’t do anything for me. Whenever the Mac went to sleep (with external HDDs ON and connected) after waking it up the whole ordeal started again …

I didn’t try them on Ventura yet …

Problem returns... see response above.

 

[matt_stl]

In all honesty this was never about the sleep function. My problem was the drive would spin all the way down and shut off after about 10 seconds to a minute of no access even if it had just spun up and been accessed momentarily which was more annoying than any issue with it waking from sleep. I don't actually let this computer sleep since it uses so little power at idle I just turn off the monitors.

Sorry there's no solution for the sleep part.

 

[KevinMP]

Hi Matt,

I'm sorry if MistD and I confused you, I think we are all saying the same thing: this is not a problem with dealing with wake from sleep, it's something that results from the Mac having been into CPU sleep at some time since it was last started. We all see the drive(s) spin up and down within a few seconds and this behavior continues until the Mac is restarted. Even if you have no intention of letting the Mac sleep, it will occasionally enter CPU sleep. (In my case, this seems to happen every couple of weeks, despite my attempts to prevent it.)

Your "solution" was to run a pmset command and reboot your Mac. All of us that have tried this and similar solutions find that it eventually stops working until the Mac is rebooted again (with or without the pmset!). Since you do not ever put your Mac to sleep, maybe you shut it down regularly, those shutdows will "fix" the problem.

If you run the uptime command in terminal it will report how long you Mac has ben up. I will be delighted (though surprised) to hear if your Mac has ben up since April 7 and the spin up/down is not happening. Please let us know.

 

[ApexDE]

macOS 13.4: the bug's still there

 

[matt_stl]

Hi Kevin,

I restart every once in a while or when required for some update, be it Mac OS or something else. There's also times when I travel for work and this thing gets shut down, not to mention the occasional power flicker or failure that will cause it to shut down. The only time I've had to re-run the command, thus far, has been when a Mac OS update was applied, most recently when 13.4 was released, major Mac OS releases are not automatically installed. I haven't had it come back on seemingly at random like others have stated.

I hope whatever is going on with these settings or whatever the problem may be is resolved soon if Apple even has it on their roadmap. Sorry I'm not more active on here for replies and whatnot. I need to setup notifications...

EDIT:
Also, I ran the uptime command and it was only up for 8 days. Whenever 13.4 was installed was when I ran the command again after it was finished updating and the spin down issue came back, since then its been fine.

 

[c.oberschneider]

Now the next big question is: has this issue been resolved in Sonoma?

 

[Appler007]

13.4 - same problem!

 

[WebHead]

macOS 13.4: the bug's still there

13.4 - same problem!

Yep, I re-enabled "put hard disks to sleep when possible" just in case, but my external wouldn't stay asleep.

 

[MistD]

13.4 - same problem!

At this point I think I will just go for a NAS. Using external HDDs it's just unbearable. I can't stand it anymore and I am tired of waiting for a fix.

I think they f##ked the M1 architecture and they will not fix this in million years. I am curious if the M2 has the same behavior.

Anyway ... I am done, I'm about to throw this HDD out the window

 

[ApexDE]

I am wondering if the bug made it to 13.5 beta though

 

[WebHead]

At this point I think I will just go for a NAS. Using external HDDs it's just unbearable. I can't stand it anymore and I am tired of waiting for a fix.

I think they f##ked the M1 architecture and they will not fix this in million years. I am curious if the M2 has the same behavior.

Anyway ... I am done, I'm about to throw this HDD out the window

I've stated this previously, but I have the same problem on i9. So it could be the OS.

I've just learned to live with the HD always on when the Mac is. Not ideal but not as bad as spinning up and down.

 

[ApexDE]

my guess is that it is a OS big too, not chipset related.

 

[KevinMP]

One faint ray of hope is that the 2023 Mac Pro has a somewhat different problem with Hard Drives after sleeping the computer. Apple has told users to avoid putting the machine to sleep for now and a fix is forthcoming. It's just possible that they might stumble across "our" problem at the same time and fix it too.

If you see 'disk not ejected properly' on your Mac Pro (2023) - Apple Support

If an internal SATA drive unexpectedly disconnects from your Mac Pro,

support.apple.com

 

[VelNZ]

I have a 2023 Mac Pro and the external hard drive spinning up issue is present on that as well with the latest macOS. My Seagate drive spins up every 30 seconds then turns off again when the Mac Pro is sleeping with put hard disks to sleep being turned off. It's connected by USB-A as it's an older drive.

One thing that might be related is that I've noticed the Mac itself seems to wake up from sleep frequently through the night (but not every 30 seconds). I have "Wake for network access" off, which I believe is the old Power Nap setting, but macOS seems to wake up and go back to sleep all through the night even with this off every 10-20 minutes. See the attached graphic from iStat Menus of CPU usage through the night.

Edit: just tested and the spinning up/down every 30 seconds happens with my Lacie 2big connected by USB-C as well.

 

[rowlands]

I have "Wake for network access" off, which I believe is the old Power Nap setting, but macOS seems to wake up and go back to sleep all through the night even with this off every 10-20 minutes.

This is typical behavior for M series Macs. They wake ~4 an hour to do things. Disabling PowerNap on M series Macs is not advised as in some cases (seems dependent on hardware) this can actually cause the Mac to wake up 600 times a minute.
I have been exploring alternative options in the belly of the macOS to see if I can reduce the # of times the Mac wakes, I thought I had it, but after expanded testing, it seems more like for certain hardware running certain versions of the macOS

 

[VelNZ]

This is typical behavior for M series Macs. They wake ~4 an hour to do things. Disabling PowerNap on M series Macs is not advised as in some cases (seems dependent on hardware) this can actually cause the Mac to wake up 600 times a minute.
I have been exploring alternative options in the belly of the macOS to see if I can reduce the # of times the Mac wakes, I thought I had it, but after expanded testing, it seems more like for certain hardware running certain versions of the macOS

Hmm good to know. I guess the only solution is to leave my computer on 24/7. So they make super efficient CPUs, and then cripple the software to force us to leave them on 24/7? So much for the environmental impact.