Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk frustration

After visiting the Seagate support forums and finding out hoe folks dealt with this issue, I purchased a Seagate Firewire 800/USB 2.0 Desktop Adapter to replace the usb 3.0 version that comes with the drive. It cost me about an extra $27 bucks but the drive stays mounted and the finder doesn't freeze. Moral of thre story - that drive is NOT mac compatible in the USB 3.0 version despite everything Seagate claims

I have the 3TB version and the Firewire 800 adapter but have the same issues. I've disabled "Put the hard disks to sleep when possible" option in Energy Saver but it still sleeps. The only difference of my config is that it is daisy-chained from another external drive, also using the FW800 connection. That drive does not sleep but the Seagate drive still sleeps when idle.

By chance has anyone come across a new fix or suggestion?

I ran into this problem on a different Seagate drive, and found a solution (and also, I think, the cause of the problem).

Try a little program called "Keep Drive Spinning", available on MacUpdate. It's very simple and in fact is no more than a wrapper to a shell script and launch daemon that accesses the drive regularly. The only trouble with it is that it does keep the drive spinning, rather than letting the drive sleep and then wake up. For my use that was not an issue.

The problem with Seagate is that their drive sets its own sleep time, and won't wake up once it has slept, and seems to freeze the Finder. I did find on the Seagate site a while ago a little program that claimed to solve this, but from looking at the elements of the package I was convinced that it did not work.

I did not feel like experimenting, though, but someone else might be more adventurous. I used something called "Suspicious Package" which lets you look at the contents of a package installer by Quick Look. It seemed to me that what the Seagate program did was to temporarily install its own driver, use that to reset the sleep time, then remove that temporary driver. But I reckoned that the sleep time need to be set to 0 to ensure that Energy Saver controlled sleep but in fact was set to a non-zero figure.

Wow. I hadn't even thought about a simple script to access the drive as I was concentrating on how to fix the problem instead of patching it. I've just written my own instead but the Keep Drive Spinning utility is perfect for those that are not comfortable making their own scripts. (One down side to the Keep Drive Spinning utility is that it installs as a user script and not a system script so it will only run when that user is logged in.)

Obviously it would be best to fix/control the drive sleep instead of using this hack, but it will have to work until (haha!) Seagate fixes it.

Thanks danco.

I have been having precisely the same problem with the GoFlex Desk 2tb USB 3.0 on my MacBook. Almost every time I try to transfer files, the drive hangs and forces me to do a hard restart. I purchased the drive in August of 2011.

I contacted support and they told me to run mac diagnostics, which it passed. The support person didn't understand why this is happening and recommended I return the drive while I can.

I will try again tomorrow using a FireWire adapter, but I was hoping there was a real fix for this. What is the point of patching temporarily if there might be problems the next time I connect to a different computer? And having the drive constantly spin seems like harsh treatment for something the drive should do easily. I have 6 other external hard drives and none of them exhibit this type of behavior. They transfer files by drag and drop with no problems. Yet my Seagate is super problematic and I don't what to tip toe around it.

I am willing to throw in the towel soon, but I really want a solution. At $90 for 2tb and $20 for a FireWire adapter, I hope I can turn to go flex for more drives in the future. Who knows, maybe some day I will buy a new mac and upgrade to a thunderbolt adapter. Otherwise, I am looking at non-upgradable USB 2.0 drives like the WD Elements.

I hope someone can speak to this problem and provide some sunshine.

Thanks,

RJ

The O.P. reported using Seagate Diagnostics unsuccessfully, but I wondered if anyone had used the

GoFlex for Mac software.

Below is Seagate's description. You can see that it specifically says that it includes drivers to disable the built-in sleep timer (which I think is the cause of the problem(. Somewhere in the Seagate discussion forums I think I saw that you don't have to set anything, just installing the relevant drivers is enough.

As I mentioned previously, it is possible to look at the scripts in the installation package, but I found them too complicated to understand.

I agree with gogogut that having the drive spin constantly is not a good solution for most people. I only used that drive for video programs and processing them, so I unmounted and turned the drive off except when I needed it to be active.

File Version: 1.1.2
File Name: Seagate GoFlex Software.mpkg.zip
File Size: 5MB
Supported Operating Systems: MacOS 10.5.11+, MacOS 10.6

Summary

Seagate Drive Settings application for MacOS is included on the GoFlex series of drives. Simply double click it to install the software. If the software was deleted, it can be downloaded using the link below.

This software package includes Diagnostic software for testing the drive, drivers to disable the built-in sleep timer on the drive, and drivers to enable the capacity gauge for GoFlex Desk models. It has now been updated to support 64-bit and 32-bit version of MacOS.

I just downloaded the GoFlex for Mac software and installed it on the drive. I will now try a fresh data transfer and see if anything has changed. I will report back soon.

I had not downloaded this particular software before because it said on the website that it was specific to the GoFlex for Mac drives. Seeing as how I reformatted, I hope it is okay that I put it on my drive.

Ha! Haven't even started yet and the drive is already hung, so this is not looking good.

RJ

Update:

I just finished my 3rd successful data transfer of the day. For the 2nd transfer, I used the GoFlex Firewire 800 adapter I purchased yesterday to test the theory that the USB 3.0 adapter/power supply was the problem. Transfers are of large folders with large video files. Transfers are from an OWC external hard drive connected to a Macbook by Firewire 400 to the GoFlex.

1) 182.75GB in 100 mins, so 1.83GB/min with the USB 3.0/2.0 adapter connected to the Macbook, which is connected by Firewire 400 to the OWC hard drive

2) 71.49GB in 60 mins, so 1.195GB/min with Firewire 800 connected from GoFlex to OWC external hard drive (daisy chain).

3) 67.92GB in 35 mins, so 1.94GB/min with the USB 3.0 adapter connected to the Macbook.

I am happy that data transfers are now happening without hangs/freezes and forced restarts. However, I am suprised that the Firewire daisy chain was significantly slower than the USB speeds (which must be USB 2.0 since Mac doesn't support USB 3.0). Shouldn't Firewire be faster? Especially Firewire 800 directly connecting the 2 drives rather than going through the laptop?

Regardless, the major change today was me downloading and installing the GoFlex for Mac software danco posted above. The directions say to install it within the external drive, but the installer only installs on the Mac hard drive.

I am giving my drives a break since there are lots of posts out there about the GoFlex not having good air circulation and overheating. I will continue mass data transfer later and will post back here if something changes.

Until then, what's up with those data transfer speeds? read on some support forum somewhere that someone got Seagate support to exchange their USB 3.0/2.0 adapter for a Firewire adapter. I was going to make that same call today to see if they would exchange it, but if everything continues to work the way it was today, the USB 3.0/2.0 was actually faster. So I will return the Firewire adapter if it looks like I should permanantly stick with the USB 3.0/2.0 adapter.

RJ