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External USB Hard Drive spins up/down all the time
- Thread starter Auream
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I experienced the same thing with a thunderbolt external 5 HDD bay enclosure when I upgraded my 2018 Macmini 8,1 to a 2023 16" M2 Max MBPro 14,6. Not 100% sure if the problem started when I went from the Intel chip to the M2, or when I upgraded my MacOS from Ventura to Sonoma because both happened simultaneously. I just know that it worked before on the old system. The symptoms were... regardless if the thunderbolt cable was plugged directly into the MBPro or external dock, the drives would continually drop after 3ish hours. Only solution would be to reboot the system and start the 3ish hour window again.
*Knock on wood* I have been symptom free for the past week. I have connected my thunderbolt cable into my dock using a USBC female to USBA male adapter. Of course, the usual suggestions of "Prevent automatic sleeping... [On]", "Put hard drives to sleep... [Never]", "Wake for network access...[Never]" have been applied. I purposely have kept my system running 24/7 the past week to try to get it to fail, but as of now I am good to go.
This solution may not be for everyone. An individual I work with has exactly the same 5 bay setup... but with a 2023 M2 MBAir, and the drives drop even with an adapter or USBC to USBA cable. He is now looking at other culprits, like OneDrive, that seems to be hammering his system constantly.
*Knock on wood* I have been symptom free for the past week. I have connected my thunderbolt cable into my dock using a USBC female to USBA male adapter. Of course, the usual suggestions of "Prevent automatic sleeping... [On]", "Put hard drives to sleep... [Never]", "Wake for network access...[Never]" have been applied. I purposely have kept my system running 24/7 the past week to try to get it to fail, but as of now I am good to go.
This solution may not be for everyone. An individual I work with has exactly the same 5 bay setup... but with a 2023 M2 MBAir, and the drives drop even with an adapter or USBC to USBA cable. He is now looking at other culprits, like OneDrive, that seems to be hammering his system constantly.
Install the Amphetamine app and enable 'drive alive'.
On/off cycling is probably the worst thing you can do to hdd's.
When you need access to it on a daily basis, it's preferred you keep them spinning at all times. The energy you save/environmental impact would be nihil compared to having to replace the drive and lose the data.
On/off cycling is probably the worst thing you can do to hdd's.
When you need access to it on a daily basis, it's preferred you keep them spinning at all times. The energy you save/environmental impact would be nihil compared to having to replace the drive and lose the data.
Has anyone tried running a drive through a Thunderbolt hub versus connecting over USB 3?
This post from Nov. 2023 would suggest Thunderbolt has the same issue, but has anyone tried switching connection methods?
I'd imagine going NAS would solve the issue.
This post from Nov. 2023 would suggest Thunderbolt has the same issue, but has anyone tried switching connection methods?
I'd imagine going NAS would solve the issue.
Yes, pretty much. If you also run the NAS on a 10 Gbe network, the speed will be more than enough (providing you will get a multi-bay for added read/write performance)
I got so fed up on this and I purchased a NAS. The switch was like a breath of fresh air. It also brought me some other benefits like running services, backups etc on a schedule without my Mac being on.
It seems like the conversation stopped a couple of years ago, but has anyone ever found a solution for this strange behaviour?
Mine just stay spinning, no matter what I do. So I guess my issue is a little different. I've even upgraded minis since this issue began, and still the same behavior no matter what settings I mess with.
No, and Apple is ignoring the issue as hard as possible even though i gave detailed reports about it via Feedback Apps and Bugreports over their website.
My 2019 iMac i9 stopped sleeping altogether with 14.5, I had to manually put it to sleep. BTStack and Handoff appeared to be the culprits.
Autosleep seems to be working again with 14.6.1, but I don't expect the HD issue to be fixed after all these years.
Autosleep seems to be working again with 14.6.1, but I don't expect the HD issue to be fixed after all these years.