I have a Seagate 10TB external drive hooked to my iMac. It is noisy and runs continuously. Not sure why it is always running. I have Time Machine backing up to this drive, but only once a day between 12 and 6am. I checked TM when the drive is running and TM is not active. why would it run constantly and how can I look at what processes are causing this?
Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
It is never a good idea to use "Time Machine Schedulers". It can mess with Time Machine and create many issues.
Regarding the drive issue, if this drive has an external power supply, it will always run until un-plugged. If it is bus-powered, it will run if the Mac is on (with the display on or off).
-Jack
Some drives spin down (sleep) when not being accessed for a while and others do not. This is usually built into the drive architecture (or enclosure). I agree with Jack-19 that you should not interfere with TM programming. It has no benefit and can mess up the TM process.
I have had some drives that were noisy and others not. The faster a mechanical drive is the louder it is. I have a WD blue that is very quiet and a Black that is not as quiet. With a quiet drive TM running every hour is not a noise issue. My only suggestion is to move the drive, get a different model or use an enclosure to mute the sound. No quick solution.
Thanks for this. I am aware that some drives sleep while other don't, but that is not really the issue. The drive is continually reading and writing and is extremely loud while doing so. Not in a "upcoming head crash" way, just very loud access.
On the TM side, I understand the risk with third party SW, but TM is so devoid of features you can't even schedule when it runs. I don't want it running every hour.
external hard drive runs continuously
