Strange external HDD related Safari behaviour.

Question

Strange external HDD related Safari behaviour.

I have a Western Digital MyBook external hdd which goes to sleep after 10 minutes. However, sometimes when I'm browsing with Safari, opening a new page causes the external hard drive to wake up before the page loads. This takes a few seconds obviously, and is thus frustrating. At first I thought it was Flash content related, but it even does this when ClickToFlash is blocking Flash. The hard disk is used for media and manual backups, i.e. OS X doesn't use it for any system files.

Any ideas?

Could it be something to do with sites checking the system? As in, opening up a "Save As" dialog anywhere on the system also causes applications to freeze while the hard drive wakes up...?

 iMac 20" 2.0GHz 2GB Aluminium, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 11, 2011 11:45 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jul 3, 2018 1:11 AM in response to RandomVillainZA

Got the same problem, Safari 5.0.3 and Samsung Spinpoint F4 connected via USB 2.0. Pretty **** annoying.

On another note, although my disk is fragmented and I have 12GB free, the amount of disk accesses and resulting Safari sometimes makes when opening new tabs is driving me nuts. Considering switching to Firefox as a result. I mean, yes, if the disk wasn't fragmented this might be faster, it's annoying nonetheless.

Reply

Answer 2

Feb 11, 2011 12:03 PM in response to RandomVillainZA

Hi,

Might be Spotlight indexing.

Open System Preferences / Spotlight then select the Privacy tab.

If your external drive is in the list, select that then click -

See if that makes a difference.

Carolyn 🙂

Message was edited by: Carolyn

Reply

Answer 3

Feb 11, 2011 1:12 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Nope it's not Spotlight indexing. It specifically does it in Safari when a new page is opened. Not always though, but when it does happen it's just as the new page/tab opens. Safari freezes (with beachball spinning) till the hard drive wakes up completely.

In any case, I like using Spotlight to search the drive.

Reply

Answer 4

Feb 11, 2011 1:57 PM in response to RandomVillainZA

Safari freezes (with beachball spinning) till the hard drive wakes up completely.

Help here for the SBBOD.

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html

🙂

Reply

Answer 5

Feb 11, 2011 2:55 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Did you even read my post? It's not SBBOD. Nevermind.

Anyone else (who aren't just looking for "solved" points or something) have any ideas?

Reply

Answer 6

Feb 11, 2011 2:58 PM in response to RandomVillainZA

Yes I did.

Safari freezes (with beachball spinning) till the hard drive wakes up completely.

🙂

Reply

Answer 7

Feb 11, 2011 3:10 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Yes, the beachball spins, as it does when it's normally processing. It's not SBB +of death+.

I guess I should add that I know the ins and outs of OS X. I have tried the normal troubleshooting. This is a specific issue though. Maybe someone with a similar configuration can share their experience?

Reply

Answer 8

andyBall_uk

Level 7

20,516 points

Feb 11, 2011 3:37 PM in response to RandomVillainZA

Hi

did the WD get their software installed on your mac? - since that's not expected for the drive to wake when browsing (my hitachi & previous portables don't), so there presumably may be some explanation.

Activity Monitor - Safari info-show open files & ports might reveal if it's accessing some particular file(s), and the general activity monitor display (with filter set to 'all processes') may show if or what starts up/bogs down to account for the delay.

Reply

Answer 9

bdkjones

Level 4

1,335 points

Feb 12, 2011 2:27 PM in response to RandomVillainZA

I, too, have noticed this behavior.

I have a Seagate external drive hooked up to my 2008 Macbook Pro via USB and another Seagate drive hooked up via Firewire. I have never noticed the issue with the Firewire drive; it appears to only materialize with the USB drive. Additionally, I do not believe particular websites cause the behavior. Opening ANY new website with the external drive asleep results in a brief, Safari-only hang while the drive wakes up.

It's fairly puzzling, as Webkit uses caches on the system volume and should have no interaction with external disks. I briefly looked on RADR for a related bug report, but did not find one.

I should also mention that, while I'm looking for an answer to the problem, I do NOT need "solver points" people walking me through the standard troubleshooting steps --- I'm a Mac developer and know OS X quite thoroughly. (I'm not trying to sound arrogant, just heading off useless replies.)

Reply

Answer 10

andyBall_uk

Level 7

20,516 points

Feb 12, 2011 2:51 PM in response to bdkjones

does yours access any particular files on the drive ?
same with a drive w/o an OS ?

going back a while, someone said that even opening a new empty tab prompted this.

Reply

Answer 11

Feb 16, 2011 11:32 AM in response to bdkjones

Thanks for the post bdkjones, seems like we have the same problem, and that it isn't related to the brand of external HDD. Must be a Safari issue. As far as I can tell it hasn't been any specific websites that cause the drive to wake, although I do notice it more on forums and google (as that's where I open the most new tabs).

"I should also mention that, while I'm looking for an answer to the problem, I do NOT need "solver points" people walking me through the standard troubleshooting steps --- I'm a Mac developer and know OS X quite thoroughly. (I'm not trying to sound arrogant, just heading off useless replies.)"

Amen. So tired of the people that just assume everyone is useless when it comes to computers.

Reply

Answer 12

.Byron

Level 1

0 points

Feb 16, 2011 4:53 PM in response to RandomVillainZA

I have an external Firewire 800 drive that is doing the exact same thing and it is driving me nuts! I don't understand why opening a new tab in Safari needs to access my external drive. A google search regarding this behavior lead me here. I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing this issue.

Reply

Answer 13

Martin_

Level 1

4 points

Feb 24, 2011 11:00 PM in response to RandomVillainZA

Had this problem with a mac mini which had several external usb drives connected. Recently upgraded to an older mac pro, removed the drives from their usb cases and fitted them to the internal drive bays. Still getting the same problem where on opening a new page, the beach ball appears until all the drives spin up. Unable to identify any common factors in the pages involved. This morning it happened with ebay, but when I accessed that site yesterday the problem didn't happen.

Reply

Answer 14

Feb 28, 2011 5:07 PM in response to Martin_

Yep, it's definitely not limited to External Drives, I get this behaviour with my Mac Pro's internal drives, it's been doing it for as long I can remember.

I haven't managed to link this with the the obvious suspects, Time Machine, Spotlight indexing etc. Safari wants to poll my non-boot partition hard drives and I'll just have to wait until they pointlessly spin up...

To the OP, I can't agree with you more regarding the useless 'help' you get around here. Way too many addicts with 5 and 6 figure post counts practically live here waiting to link you to an irrelevant knowledge base articles, post duff info, and generally lead people up the garden path. Utter time wasters.

Reply

Answer 15

Jouster

Level 1

0 points

Apr 2, 2011 2:26 AM in response to RandomVillainZA

Same problem here with a WD Elements drive, no third-party software loaded for it. The BBC News website in particular seems to be fond of waking up the external drive. I don't know if that's significant or just that it's one I use a lot so I just notice it more.

Reply