Mac Studio and External Drive

@Grant Bennet-Alder The drives I am using are LaCie 5TB mobile drives which can be bought on the Apple Store. The thing is, there have actually been scenarios where the sleep/wake cycle does work as expected, so I'm not sure whether the theory above holds up. I have also been testing with my LaCie Big2 drive which has its own power supply and I get the same behaviour, that Mac Studio doesn't want to keep the drive awake.

I have a similar problem but different. I have two Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe docs / Thunderbolt. No weirdness with 'spinning down' of course, but when I put it to sleep the Echo Duals will go to sleep (lights out) and at some point light up again - but nothing 'wakes up' - they are just in a state of readiness I guess. They are using juice because they get somewhat warm to the touch - as does Mac Studio Ultra 128/2TB.

I have automatic sleep disabled ('never sleep') as I'm using this in a recording studio.

I have bought a 6TB Gdrive USB C, this morning it is arrived and I immediately tested it. It seems to work without problem, there is a big difference between the two hard drive: the Gdrive is formatted with the old Mac OS extended while LaCie 1big Dock 8 TB is formatted APFS. Could be the this is the origin of the problem?

My experience said that the problem happened on both buses usb 3 and thunderbolt. I can replicate the bug either without any hub and with a thunderbolt hub.

I have tried probably all the possible variables.

I too have this problem. I have one drive commented directly to one of the ports on the back of my studio. I also have a powered USB hub that I have about 4 external SSDs connected to. Those never ejected. Probably because the power doesn't drop.

You are missing a line item for drive to sleep. I would reinstall the OS.

same problem, see my thread MAC STUDIO - sleep and wake up problem of… - Apple Community

AndyOfLinux wrote:

I have 3 external USB drives directly connected to my Mac Studio that have their own power BUT still spin down, no matter power settings for "sleep when possible" or "prevent Mac from sleeping" :(

If they spin down, do you later get the "not ejected properly" message on these drives?

Drives spin up/down on regular basis with no error or warning message. Finder "freezes" when copying a file - even internal to internal - until all drives spin up. Also will randomly spin up drives when inside an app - with no apparent (though may be hidden) disk access indicated. VERY frustrating!

So if I understand your situation, spinning down drives DELAYS completion of tasks that do finish eventually, but does not keep it from completing it mission. (provided you wait long enough.)

¿Is that right?

NO spinners here. I'll try unplugging all the ports (all loaded) and see if that helps. I did upgrade to Monterey 4 but that didn't help. Other than this problem, I absolutely love the machine. And it's a minor problem. Almost always, it sleeps on the third try. Maybe it thinks it's playing baseball w me?

Thanks for all the comments. I have a similar though less sophisticated concern. I am contemplating replacing my 2012 iMac 27 and splurging for the Mac Studio for lack of a less expensive intermediate option. Seeing how much storage costs, I am trying to figure out how to configure my system. Would folks suggest 1 tb ssd storage system with an external drive to hold what I currently have? 1.08 Tb in Documents, 450 Gb in Photos, 65 gB in music, etc... ? What drives would folks recommend? Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C connections? Will that keep performance good? allow for backups and access with the system or will I have a lot of spinning wheels as drives ramp up like you all are describing?

Thanks and sorry to bring the level of discourse down a notch :).

My personal opinion is that an external Thunderbolt 3 NVMe M.2 SSD (dedicated cabinet) would be perfect for daily work, very fast solution. In any case you have to consider a more reliable device as backup;, mechanical HD is still the best and sicure choice to archive your files. Ssd devices are fast but not reliable as backup unit.

I have a little Nas for Time Machine backup.

"Lil Nas"? Isn't that a country hip hop artist?

When I'm hoping to do is make one of my old cheesgraters into a server for backup. Doesn't seem Mac Studio is real keen on spinners.

Also, from what I'm hearing, a lot of folks are ordering bigger drives in their Mac Studios. The drives and the machine are so fast you can run Pro Tools sessions - big ones - from the internal drive. While you might not be running Pro Tools, it tells me the internal drive can handle a lot of abuse (lots of data all at once) the old main HD spinners couldn't.

SSD's are great but don't hold enough for me. And I've HEARD they're not as reliable for backup. Something to do with how they degenerate over time. I've HEARD that if you wipe them clean occasionally they last longer. My experience is, data backup is an exercise in impermanence. Redundance is crucial if it's really critical.