External USB HD constantly spinning up/down 11.6.1.

[hideous cheese]

Anyone else noticing this?

I updated from 11.6 to 11.6.1 on Monday. Today I'm noticing that my WD Elements desktop drive keeps on spinning down and up. Its externally powered and plugged directly into a USB port on my M1 iMac. I had no problems prior to the update.

Example from this evening - the USB is a media storage and I'm watching something from that drive now, but its pausing occasionally as the disk spins down then spins up again.

 

[Floop]

Did you ever figure this out? I've got the same issue on my M1 iMac, running 12.0.1.

I haven't got time to problem solve it so I'm wondering whether you figured this out. Thanks for your help!

 

[dgadwa]

Same symptoms here. M1 Mini running Monterey 12.0.1. The drive is a WD 3TB drive, USB2 enclosure.

Really, really annoying.

 

[Auream]

I'm having this problem too on my M1 MacBook Air. Decided to post a new thread since its Monterey and not Big Sur, but anyone having this problem might want to check out this thread (unresolved but still active discussion): https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...the-time.2330850/?post=30778299#post-30778299

 

[gilby101]

Today I'm noticing that my WD Elements desktop drive keeps on spinning down and up.

This is not new to BS. It has always been true. See my answer (second page) in thread created by @Auream

 

[Auream]

This is not new to BS. It has always been true. See my answer (second page) in thread created by @Auream

No, you're confusing heads parking with spinning down. Head parking is a (relatively) quick operation, a matter of milliseconds. Spinning down then back up takes several seconds.

 

[hideous cheese]

Did you ever figure this out? I've got the same issue on my M1 iMac, running 12.0.1.

I haven't got time to problem solve it so I'm wondering whether you figured this out. Thanks for your help!

The fix I found for Big Sur (after experimenting with cables and USB ports) was to delete the energy saver/power management plists and reboot.

The discussion in Monterrey - not solved - is going on now here https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...the-time.2330850/?post=30778299#post-30778299

Fuller backstory from me:
The external drives were working fine with my old iMac on High Sierra. Bought a new iMac running Big Sur and it was fine until I upgraded from 11.6 to 11.6.1. For me there was a .plist deletion fix, but other users are not so lucky