

Read this Apple Support Discussions thread suspecting Time Machine or Windows Server causing a continuously spinning external hard drive. Read this Apple Support Discussions thread regarding a continuously spinning external hard drive. Just why it's periodically talking to your external drive is unclear, but you can't do without it." Resources It also does the grunt work of launching new user applications" "Window Server is responsible for managing the display and mediating between the various applications and other processes that want to display information on it. To get an idea of what processes are causing your drive to be accessed, you can open Activity Monitor in your Applications, Utilities folder and watch for processes to spike as the drive is accessed. option in System Preferences > Energy Saver."By most accounts, it is completely normal for a mounted external hard drive to be accessed several times per hour, even if the drive is not directly in use. Development > Add-ons > Keep drive spinning.
#Keep drive spinning code
However, there may be a way to control the frequency your computer accesses the external hard drive.Īpple Support Discussions user "Pondini" suggests: "Some drives respond to the Put the hard disk(s) to sleep. News Wiki Code Bug Tracker Download Donate > Development > Add-ons > Keep drive spinning.

Sometimes we forget to close applications properly and they keep running in. Can anything be done to completely make Time Machine forget that drive?" Possible work-aroundsĪs stated earlier, this does not appear to be an issue caused by a bug. The spinning wheel of death usually comes from a hard drive issue, where the. I repeatedly hear the FireWire drive rev up each time this happens and its very distracting when working at my computer. When Time machine is backing up to it, it is understandable, but it "churns" even when Time machine is not using it, for example, when I simply save a file to my documents folder (I never save anything directly to my Time Machine drive) or sometimes for no reason at all."Apple Support Discussions user "Robert Weingarten" adds: "Although I have turned off Time Machine in the Preference panel, several times per hour TM keeps trying to access the external FireWire HD that it formerly used to do backups. I normally do not like to leave it on, because it "cycles." By that I mean, it will go to sleep, or "spin down," and then a few minutes later, for some reason it will wake back up again. the insomnia app that I wrote for Droboshare to keep its drives from spinning down.
#Keep drive spinning mac
I understand that it should stay on and connected to my Mac so that time machine can make its periodic backups. The drives automatically spin down after 15 minutes of inactivity. While this issue does not have a clear solution, most people agree that the disk access is normal and not a result of a bug.Īpple Support Discussions user "Timothy Arends1" writes: "I have an external LaCie FireWire hard drive that I use for Time machine. Some Time Machine users are concerned that the drive was being accessed by another, unauthorized application or because of a bug.

People have been noticing that their external hard drives continue to spin even when they have stopped using the drive.
