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Level 1

5 points

Why does secondary disk spin up?

Hi,

I put a secondary disk (SSD) into my macbook pro (replacing the Superdrive). All works well and I use the original hard drive for data/media only. I noticed however that Finder and other apps tend to spin up that disk as well even though I fail to find any obvious reason.

Easy solution (so I thought): unmount all volumes on that disk when not used. But even if the only disk mounted is my SSD I hear my hard drive spinning up once in a while. Besides the fact that I would rather not have this to conserve battery power I am just curios to find out why this is.

Any idea how to find this out?

Regards,
JP

MacBook Pro 15", Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Sep 11, 2010 5:56 AM

26 replies

sabel

Level 1

4 points

Jan 3, 2011 11:00 AM in response to jase71ds

I have the same arrangement - OK with a mere 250 GB in my optical by not the humungous item you have. I'm using my HDD for things like itunes photos etc and most of the time I don't use these so certainly don't want my hard drive being spotlighted or whatever the whole time. You can solve it as follows [oh and by the way, whoever that deaf guy was, on mine you can clearly hear the HDD quietly hissing if you're sitting in relative silence - and also if someone wants to void their warranty that's their business - but thanks for the lecture anyway].

First - options I tried and rejected, (1) - stopping spotlight accessing it - it still spins up from time to time - and always when it's first booted, (2) setting SpindownHD in the developer tools to spin down every 1 minute instead of 10 - it reverts back to the default 10 minutes after a while. The solution is to have the HDD unmounted unless you are using it. (of course you can always use disk utility to do this manually but it's too cumbersome to do it every time you log in). The following works apart from wake up after sleep when the HDD is unmounted but seems to be spinning anyway - not sure why but to stop it you can just use the second app below twice.

So you need to make two apps -

The first app unmounts the disk (in my case it is mounted as /Volumes/Liouville2 ). To make it, open Applescript editor and paste the following into it and then save it as an app called something like ejectHDD in the Applications folder of your home directory. Then set start it whenever you log in --

try
do shell script "touch /Volumes/Liouville2/.dummy; hdiutil eject `disktool -l | grep /Volumes/Liouville2 | awk '{ print substr($0,20,7) }'`"
end try

The second app toggles the disk. i.e. mounts it if it's unmounted and unmounts it if it's mounted. You can save this as an app called something like toggleHDD and put a link on the dock in case you want to use itunes or whatever requires the data on the 2nd hard drive - you just need to click on that first - and when your done click it again to unmount it.

tell application "Finder"
if (exists disk "Liouville2") then
try
do shell script "touch /Volumes/Liouville2/.dummy; hdiutil eject `disktool -l | grep /Volumes/Liouville2 | awk '{ print substr($0,20,7) }'`"
end try
else
try
do shell script "diskutil mountDisk `disktool -l | grep Liouville2 | awk '{ print substr($0,20,7) }'`"
end try
end if
end tell

jase71ds

Level 1

1 points

Jan 3, 2011 1:03 PM in response to sabel

sabel, thanks for this info.

I tried your applescript, and at first it did not work, but I had a hunch that I had done a bad thing -- when I originally named my secondary drive (the HDD) I included a space and a comma. Bad, I know. So I renamed the drive with no spaces or commas and your scripts work like a champ.

I did just what you said. Upon login, the HDD is disabled. Then I put the toggle_HDD in the finder side pane (left hand bar) for a convenient shortcut for mounting and unmounting.

So, a big hardy thanks.

[BTW, you are right, anyone with respectable hearing can discern the HDD spinning up.]

A request I have from you (or anyone) is one more applescript. And I don't blame you one bit if you tell me to go pay someone to do this... But here's the deal.

I only keep a huge Aperture library on the secondary HDD. I keep Aperture on the dock for launching. What I'd like is to replace the Aperture icon on the Dock with an applescript icon that does the following...
Upon click,
1) looks to see if HDD is mounted
2) If not mounted, Then mounts it
3) Launches Applications/Aperture

Feel free to tell me to "shove it". But if it's a simple script for you to write and you are feeling generous, then this guy in Houston would sure appreciate it.

Jase.

jase71ds

Level 1

1 points

Jan 19, 2011 8:06 PM in response to jase71ds

An update.
Unmounting and Ejecting the drive does not work after all. I eject; Finder no longer sees the drive; but I still get frequent spin-ups.

I'm beginning to wonder if this is not a hardware issue. As stated, this drive is in the place of the original optical drive. I don't consider this Apple's fault -- I'm the one that pulled the optical and put in a 750mb HDD -- but if I can find a way to stop the very frequent spin-ups, then I'd be happy.

I think my next step is to burn an Ubuntu Live CD, boot my MBP from that, and see if the HDD still spins up after unmounting. If it does, then I will have more evidence that this is indeed a hardware issue and not an OS X issue.

b.pwned

Level 1

0 points

Mar 21, 2011 7:22 AM in response to jase71ds

Did you have any success with Ubuntu?

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Mar 21, 2011 8:24 AM in response to j.koopmann

Several readers of the website have contacted us after Apple service providers told them that changing themselves the hard drive or the RAM in their laptop would void the warranty.

It is absolutely false. Apple authorizes both changes without any void in the warranty.

macbook-pro-replacing-the-ram-or-the-hard-drive-will-not-void-the-warranty

There are various brands of SSD and support and problems seem to vary by the model in question, by the Mac used. Sudden Motion Sensor has been mentioned as an issue for some; SATA3 and the SATA rail used to connect; firmware (always an issue); and disabling spin-down I think is a must (I never do but understand your wanting to).

in some cases, a temporary freezing with a "death wheel"
SATA III in MBP 2011

Aug 7, 2011 11:09 PM in response to j.koopmann

I know what you are saying. And I read this somewhere and tried and it seems to work. Let me know if this works for you.

This is odd, but the Finder checks your harddrives b/c of the Finder Sidebar and how the Finder interfaces with your externals.

What you do to remedy this is to go into Finder prefs and click on Sidebar.

Next, uncheck External Disks.

Close the window.

This will prevent the spinup and cure your headache. At least, it did for me.

Hope this helps!

united24

Level 1

4 points

Oct 7, 2011 2:26 PM in response to kidzpastor

Same issue on my side:

Macbook Pro Early 2011

---

Changed Original HDD with SSD

DVD with Optibay and WD Black Scorpio 750GB

My Disk is spinning up every couple of minutes.

I tried all:

1. Spotlight Privacy

2. Maximum Power saving for disks

3. Unmounting them -> but spins up ! Why?

4. Finder configuration: removing all disks from sidebar -> no help

What is spinning up this disk? I can´t understand this!

I monitored all logs, nothing give a information.

I feel, that maybe the system is doing SMART on this disk?

Is there an option to disable it?

Or is there anyway a tool to monitor process what is accessing thi disk?

Thanks

Alex

Oct 13, 2011 3:57 PM in response to united24

Same problems like united24 are there any solutions for this problem

Oct 14, 2011 6:04 AM in response to onerovico

In my case today after hours i found a slution

i tried everything in Lion and on Snowleopard to solve this problem (disabled: TM, Spotlight, versions, ...)

But now i found the process causing the HDD accesses without reading data (The process accesses the HD even if it is in Sleepmode and Ejeceted)

there are two Processes from Parallels their name are prl_.... (if you need the names so I can search for them)

but if you quit these processes Parallels wont start and you get an Error whic gives you a this link:

http://kb.parallels.com/de/8089

but now idont know how i can start the Parallels Deamons to use the App.

Jacken

Level 1

4 points

Feb 13, 2012 2:55 PM in response to j.koopmann

I had the same problem. When installing a SSD as my main disk and replaced my DVD with an extra 500gb disk, the hard drive would constantly refuse to go to sleep. I started to do some debugging and found all the processes that waked up the disk. I did a writeup on how to find the applications. You can find it here. One of the apps was iStat Menus which I like, but not as much as a quiet working environment.

http://www.jackenhack.com/disk-that-refuses-to-sleep-in-mac-os-x-how-to-fix-it/

Regards,

Jacken

ymom

Level 1

0 points

Oct 12, 2012 9:25 PM in response to onerovico

This solved my problem!!! I purged parallels from my mac and my secondary drive no longer spins up while ejected! No more prl_... processes accessing my ejected harddrives in the background! I am running an early 2009 unibody 2.0 GHz and installed sable's scripts (above) and they are working like a charm. To install sable's scripts save the scripts as an app with applescript editor. Be sure to change the names of the hard drive to your personal hard drive's name. Set the first script to run on startup through system prefs> accounts> login items. And you can drag the other to the dock to easily spin up and spin down the secondary. This gives you great control over your secondary HD! Although sometimes the toggle does not work to eject but you can easily eject from finder by right clicking on the disk. I will post if I run into any problems but I have been here for about 30 minutes and the hard drive has not spinned up!

This is why I love the internet. I hope this helped you!

Why does secondary disk spin up?