Finder crashes with External Drive on Sleep Mode

borislopez wrote:

Great, now when I turn the LaCie on, it does appear in the desktop, but it won't show in the Devices list on Finder. That's it, I'm backing up my stuff.

That doesn't sound good. I'm thinking that these drive aren't quite ready for prime time. Looks like today/tonights weather forcast is clear of Thunderstorms, so I'm going to start the 7 pass erase in preparation for it's return. Can you return yours to it's place of purchase?

Sorry to hear that. Mine was also an online purchase from New York, but I'm here in the states so it's not as big of a hassle. Mine is being erased now, it's on the 3rd of 7 passes with 16 hours left. I take it you haven't heard anything back from LaCie tech support.

borislopez wrote:

My point being that the momentary solution would be to adjust the Mac Power Preferences to 'NEVER' so neither the computer or the drive can enter on Sleep Mode, but it would be nice to know a permanent solution to save energy or hardware lifespan.

As I mentioned in my first message I have Energy Saver Preferences in OS X unchecked for Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible so it shouldn't be going to sleep because of the MacBook Pro doing it. According to LaCie's own manual By default, your drive will enter Eco Mode after 30 minutes of inactivity in order to conserve energy. My interpretation, based on that statement and real life use is that the LaCie hardware must be causing this narcolepsy. I don't see how setting the Mac sleep to never would accomplish anything as I've had the drive nod off on more than one occassion while I was using the Mac.

Same here.

LaCie d2 Quadra under Lion via Firewire 800.

After being in "Eco"-Mode for a while, the FW800 can't bring it out of it and back"alive". Finder and Disk Utility show it as mounted though, but upon accessing it (read/write/eject/...), Finder crashes.

Funny thing is, that shortly after its going into Eco, clicking on it in Finder wakes it up. But after some time in Eco mode it reaches some kind of "deep sleep" apparently - or the FW800 port loses power/connection/whatever - from which it can't be woken up.

Since I use it only as a backup disk, for now I just switch it on for a backup and eject it. In the long run, I'd like to outsource my Lightroom library to keep my MBP from getting filled up, thus It would be nice to be able to leave the disk connected to access it when needed 😉

Tested it with USB and it works just fine. Problem is, I don't shell out for a FW800 backupdisk only to use it via USB...➖

So, what's it with OS X and the Firewire card?

Btw: Hardware: MacBook Pro 5,5 (mid 2009), 2.53Ghz, 8GB Ram, OS X Lion 10.7.0

flofromvienna wrote:

Tested it with USB and it works just fine. Problem is, I don't shell out for a FW800 backupdisk only to use it via USB...➖

So, what's it with OS X and the Firewire card?

Btw: Hardware: MacBook Pro 5,5 (mid 2009), 2.53Ghz, 8GB Ram, OS X Lion 10.7.0

Those are my thoughts exactly, so I sent mine back for a refund. I didn't even try it with USB since I didn't pay for FW800 to end up using USB. For the record I was using mine with:

MacBook Pro 8,1 (Early 2011), 2.3Ghz, 4GB Ram, OX X Snow Leopad 10.6.8

I have since purchased a Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB USB 3.0/2.0 portable hard drive. I set it up yesterday with 2 partitions, 1 for a clone done with Carbon Copy Cloner and the other for use with Time Machine. The first clone and Time Machine backup took longer than the LaCie with FW800 but since then Time Machine has done multiple hourly backups and they're quick so I don't really notice the difference in day to day use. It goes to sleep/wakes with the MacBookPro. I used the Western Digital Smartware to set the internal sleep timer to never (unlike the LaCie being unchangeable) and have Energy Saver Preferences in OS X set to Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible. It goes to sleep when the MacBook Pro doesn't need it and wakes up when it does. So far it's been flawless. I know this won't help the OP any since he's stuck with his LaCie and needs FW800 for his video editing, but if you can get by with USB 2,0 you might want to consider one of these drives.

Allen Barnella wrote:

but if you can get by with USB 2,0 you might want to consider one of these drives.

Well, I'm not gonna buy another drive to use with USB - might as well use the LaCie.

Instead, they better get their act together and release a solution to a problem, they are apparently aware of. I sent a ticket to their support and got the answer, that it's a well known problem and they are working on a new firmware release. I'd rather not install software for a disk - seems unlogical and redundant to me in a working Operating System -, but if it addresses the wake-up issue, I'm fine with it.

Btw, after the Mac went to sleep and awakes, not only does the Finder crash but Wi-Fi too. It stays grey but active, and can't be turned off/ on. As sonn as I unplug the FW800 cable, Wi-Fi is connected again and working. I'm not very fond of the LaCie brand after this experience, but I am not yet ready to blame only them. Something's wrong with Firewire cards in Macbook's either, I guess. Unfortunately I don't have another FW device to test the card.

Hi everyone,

Same problem here. I have a LaCie d2 Quadra V2 1TB (FW800 and USB 2.0, bought last year) and had a d2 Quadra V3 1TB (FW800 and USB3, from this week). The V2 version is on my iMac 21.5" model 2010. The power switch has three positions: on, auto, and off. It is always set to "auto" and there are no problems with waking it up! The V3 was on my MBP 13.3" for less than a week and had all these wake-up problems. I contacted LaCie and they told me they are aware of the issue and are working on a firmware upgrade. They asked me to regularly check their driver page... I gave the LaCie d2 Q V3 back today and still got a full refund.

BTW, I started a new thread and I also found this thread showing the same issues.

Now I am looking into a new external HDD. Any recommendations?

Glad to hear the V2 does not show this extravaganza. I only bought the V3 because I went to the store by motorcycle and the V2's packaging was significantly larger. If only I had known. The V2 features a FW400 port too (which might come in useful for my older Mac) instead of the unusable USB 3.0. Unfortunately, the Apple Premium Reseller where I bought the disk has a zero return/ exchange policy (not so Premium after all), so I will write LaCie to exchange my V3 for a V2. Maybe I'm lucky.

I'll keep you up to date.

macobs30 wrote:

I contacted LaCie and they told me they are aware of the issue and are working on a firmware upgrade. They asked me to regularly check their driver page...

That's what they told me too... Which is useless because I don't want to use Software for an external HDD which should work perfectly fine on any Operating System out-of-the-box. Besides, in my understanding, that condition dates back as far as the V3 being released, and they have been aware of it all the time. They either don't care or are incompetent enough not to come up with a solution.

LaCie still uses this special "auto" switch on the more expensive "enterprise" versions. Let's hope they will re-uses it in the future again.

Well, if LaCie would offer the firmware upgrade soon, I might even wait for it. I like the LaCie's.