iTunes Wakes External Hard Disk

[Ryan.Tanner]

Hello all,


I'm not posting this in iTunes because I believe it is truly an OSX issue; not iTunes.


Here's my setup: I have a 3TB External HDD that currently only has my iPhoto library stored on it. My iTunes library lives on the Internal HDD (3TB) on my iMac. I keep iTunes on "Desktop 4" in Mission Control. Every time I swipe or navigate to "Desktop 4" where iTunes is running maximized, I get the spinning beach ball because the external drive has to be awaken; once the drive is awake, the spinning ball disappears and I can go about my business.


The part I do not understand is, if nothing in my iTunes library is stored on the external, and I am not command+clicking to "view in Finder," why would this be occurring? iPhoto isn't even running.


Why would the drive need to wake up from this? With my current specs, I really should be having slowdown, especially for something that shouldn't even be happening.


Please HELP!


iMac Specs: OSX 10.8.2; 3.2 Ghz Core i5; 8GB DDR3 RAM; 3TB HDD; GTX 680MX.

 

[Ryan.Tanner]

Wow, 365 views and no one has seen this before?

BUG REPORT!

 

[iMikeT]

My setup has my iTunes library on an external HDD so I know the issue of the drive going to sleep and waking up very well.

Personally, I think that the drive waking up because of iTunes or any other app is normal. My iTunes HD goes to sleep when it's not being used. However, it does wake up when iTunes or any other application accesses it. What I think happens is OS X/apps simply sends a signal to ANY drive connected to a Mac despite it being dedicated to a specific app as a way of having the drive ready for access in case it's needed.

I'll give you an example of when this happens to me. I have my external iTunes HDD on when ever iTunes is running. The drive goes to sleep when it's not needed. Let's say that I'm using Pages and I need to open a file so I go to File>Open. Because I did this, the external iTunes drive will wake up because OS X thinks that I might need to access it despite it being dedicated for one app. This happens all the time to me so it's normal behavior.

 

[Ryan.Tanner]

My setup has my iTunes library on an external HDD so I know the issue of the drive going to sleep and waking up very well.

Personally, I think that the drive waking up because of iTunes or any other app is normal. My iTunes HD goes to sleep when it's not being used. However, it does wake up when iTunes or any other application accesses it. What I think happens is OS X/apps simply sends a signal to ANY drive connected to a Mac despite it being dedicated to a specific app as a way of having the drive ready for access in case it's needed.

I'll give you an example of when this happens to me. I have my external iTunes HDD on when ever iTunes is running. The drive goes to sleep when it's not needed. Let's say that I'm using Pages and I need to open a file so I go to File>Open. Because I did this, the external iTunes drive will wake up because OS X thinks that I might need to access it despite it being dedicated for one app. This happens all the time to me so it's normal behavior.

That's the strange part to me. My library lives on the internal drive, and I am not accessing "finder" while in iTunes. It just seemed strange to me.

 

[iMikeT]

That's the strange part to me. My library lives on the internal drive, and I am not accessing "finder" while in iTunes. It just seemed strange to me.

As I say to anyone who I help when using and understanding why a computer works the way it does, "A computer will do things that may not seem logical to you (the user) but know that it just works as expected, for the most part."

One thing I failed to mention to you is what happens when you have multiple external hard drives connected. In my case, I have iTunes and my Time Machine hard drives connected to my Mac and both go to sleep when not being used. Again, if I were to use an application like Pages and go to File>Open, BOTH my iTunes and Time Machine hard drives will wake up so OS X/Pages can have quick access to them.