Level 1

32 points

Mac OSX Monterey External Hard Disks Going to Sleep

Hey all, I'm currently using a M1 MBA and recently updated to Monterey. The issue I'm facing now is my external hard disk dock is going to sleep after a minute of inactivity, even when I have unchecked the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" option in the power options.

This usually gets fixed by restarting the MBA, but every time I put the mac to sleep for awhile (operating in clamshell mode and connected to external display via Caldigit TS3+) and wake it back up, the issue pops up again.

When I head into terminal and execute "pmset -g", it shows that my disk sleep option is set to 0.

The external disk drive dock is plugged directly into my Caldigit TS3+, and the TS3+ is plugged into a thunderbolt port on the MBA.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.0

Posted on Dec 5, 2021 2:23 AM

Top-ranking reply

sdschramm

Level 3

525 points

Posted on Oct 21, 2022 5:10 PM

This is still not fixed with macOS 12.6. Even with "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" disabled, and pmset showing a value of 0 for "disksleep", my drive is still spinning down, and up, and down every few minutes. It seems to be caused by putting the Mac to sleep. I'm able to reproduce the issue and workaround the issue via the following:

How to reproduce:

Boot your Mac with the external hard drive connected.
Allow 10-15 minutes for mdstores process to chill out as it likes to index the drive and perform maintenance when it sees it connected. Wait even longer if this hard drive is also your Time Machine backup destination. When the drive stops reading/writing then proceed.
Sleep your Mac. Wait 10-15 minutes.
Wake you Mac. Wait 10-15 minutes.
The hard drive will now start randomly spinning down when macOS thinks it's not needed and then 1-2 minutes later spin it back up again even though you aren't trying to access the drive.
Step 5 will repeat until you reboot the Mac.

How to workaround/avoid the issue:

Boot your Mac with the external hard drive connected.
Go to System Preferences > Battery > Power Adapter and check the box for "Prevent your Mac from automatically sleeping when the display is off.
When you are finished using your Mac, go to the Apple Menu and choose Lock Screen. Do not shut the lid.
When you want to use your Mac again, press any key and log in.
The external hard drive will remain active and will not spin down unless the system sleeps. Then it will get stuck in the loop mentioned in step 5 above until your Mac is rebooted.

If anyone could test and validate my findings, please respond with your results. If this is accurate and reproducible by others, then I think we have a good shot at trying to get this fixed by Apple. For those of us with Apple Care, opening a case and pointing the engineer to this thread would eliminate a lot of back and forth troubleshooting since most of the work is already done.

Thanks,

-Scott

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146 replies

Aug 9, 2022 9:36 PM in response to Javier Bonafont

pmset -g shows my sleep set at 0. Disks still go to sleep after 1 minute if I'm not constantly pinging them through "Disk Alive". I presume 0 means don't sleep.

mrhoni

Level 1

48 points

Aug 10, 2022 12:09 PM in response to Javier Bonafont

Where is the disk sleep timer? I don't see a timer in Energy Saver. Whoops I realize you are referring to terminal commands.

Aug 11, 2022 5:49 PM in response to Javier Bonafont

UPDATE: my "fix" using Terminal was short lived. I dont know why, but it worked well for a day and now is back to disks sleeping after a minute of inactivity. :-(

Aug 27, 2022 11:02 AM in response to saofrenzy

Came here to say that I have the same issue on my M1 Max Studio. While using LR my disk has to spin up in order to load a photo after spinning down randomly. This is unbelievable.

BLKROW

Level 1

4 points

Sep 22, 2022 12:29 AM in response to Klahane

SAME HERE

Apple can you fix this NOW please

RoloM22

Level 1

12 points

Nov 3, 2022 2:15 PM in response to thelanj

See my reply below

Nov 21, 2022 4:33 PM in response to tranzlucent

I have upgrade to the latest version of the latest... 13.0.1 and the hard drives still spin down - even with those settings.

Mar 14, 2023 4:29 AM in response to saofrenzy

I have this too, m1 max. So friggin tired of it. Is there ANY known solution other than rebooting or using something like Amphetamine? NOTHING else? This is ****, Apple.

Serghios

Level 1

12 points

Jan 28, 2022 3:12 PM in response to CM@C99

Boys i updated today Monterey version 12.2 and it seems to have solved the problem.

I think...since today in addition to the update I also received and started using an OWCc Express 4M2 thunderbolt 3.

Now the GRAID thunderbolt 2 (with thunderbolt 3 adapter) is connected to the OWC port and not directly to the mbp m1 max thunderbolt 4 port, and magical it doesn't pause.

I don't know if it's because of the operating system update or because it's connected to the OWC which is running and not going to sleep prevents the other from going to sleep.

Let me know how you are doing

Peedy

Level 1

0 points

Aug 18, 2022 5:21 PM in response to saofrenzy

Just wanted to post a SAME HERE!

Recently got a MBP 16 w/M1 Max. Using a OWC USB 4 drive enclosure, RAID 5 with latest version of softraid and it just powers up and down. Never unmounts though.

"Sometimes" on a clean reboot it doesn't do this but always after being undocked. Tried the adrenaline app and so far that seems to keep it spun up. Clearly there is a bug somewhere.

Mar 28, 2023 12:21 AM in response to a_center

It's been here since Monterery from what I've understood. Don't expect a fix anytime soon. Use something like Amphetamine is the only solution.

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Mac OSX Monterey External Hard Disks Going to Sleep