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7.6 firmware causing USB disc spin up/down?

I have an Airport Extreme which has a USB disc and two printers hanging off it.

The Disc has two partitions, one of which is a Time Machine backup; the other has some shared files.

Time Machine causes the disc to spin up every hour, and sometimes when I use the Finder or an Open Dialogue, the disc will spin up to access the other partition. In either case the disc spins down after about 30 seconds of idle time.

Since installing 7.6 firmware, the USB disc spins up every couple of minutes, and as soon as the disc heads have loaded and the disc has finished rattling - perhaps 2 seconds after the whirring has reached running pitch - it spins back down.

I've done all the obvious - rebooted all the Macs sharing this disc, rebooted the Airport, powered down the disc and added it back in. All to no avail.

Does anyone else here see the same behaviour, or is this just a horrible coincidence occasioned by something else I may have changed?

Thanks!

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Nov 16, 2011 12:05 PM

Best reply

DESF

Level 1

5 points

Posted on Nov 16, 2011 4:19 PM

Since installing 7.6 firmware, I am observing the same behavior on my Time Capsule.

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52 replies

Feb 14, 2013 5:11 PM in response to Derek Hasted1

Anybody with the spindown problem tried the latest 7.6.3 update?

lepaapl

Level 1

0 points

Feb 14, 2013 7:12 PM in response to Pascal Bourque

I upgraded my 2nd gen extreme from 7.5.2 to 7.6.3 over 24 hrs ago and to my amazement I believe Apple finally solved the spinup/down issue!

Feb 16, 2013 2:20 PM in response to Pascal Bourque

Like @lepaapl I upgraded to 7.6.3, and for the first 24 hours it seemed as if Apple had actually fixed this. Alas, after a day the spin-up-and-immediate-spin-down-every-5-minutes-or-so issue returned. 😠

In my case, the problem is limited to my MacBook being awake. When the MacBook is asleep, TimeCapsule stays quiet, too. I can't remeber if this had been the case with earlier firmware versions and I can't be bothered to try. I will go back to 7.5.2. I will go directly to 7.5.2. I will not pass Go and will not collect $200 ...

lepaapl

Level 1

0 points

Feb 20, 2013 7:59 PM in response to lepaapl

Update: It's been about a week since I upgraded my 2nd gen extreme from 7.5.2 to 7.6.3, so far the spin up/down issues has not returned. Also as a test I left three macs connected for day to the USB drive; one running latest version of snow leopard, one with the latest lion, and one with latest mountain lion. The only issue I've had with 7.6.3 is with the settings migrated from 7.5.2 for the 5GHz radio mode. 5GHz would not work until I reset/saved the channel settings (In my case from static to automatic).

balck7

Level 1

0 points

Feb 21, 2013 1:51 PM in response to lepaapl

I had big troubles with 7.6.1, upgraded to 7.6.3 and it's still very annoying. With 7.6.1 I had two crashes - File system did not mount anymore. With 7.6.3 I've lost twice the iTunes library file because it was corrupt.

I think I will try now 7.5.2 - may that helps.

Mar 24, 2013 2:27 PM in response to balck7

Just adding another data point to the thread:

Airport Extreme 802.11n (5th Generation)

Buffalo Drivestation Duo connected via USB (configured to back up via Time Capsule)

Running firmware 7.6.3 with an '09 Macbook (10.6.8) and a '12 Macbook Air (10.7.5)

* only had spin up/ down issues when '09 Macbook was awake on the network

* would happen exactly every 2 minutes

Downgraded to firmware 7.5.2

* so far no spin up/ down issues...

May 6, 2014 10:31 PM in response to Derek Hasted1

I am having this problem on my 2012 MBP Retina. I have a Time Capsule running 7.6.4 and the only versions available for me to roll back to are 7.6.3 and 7.6.1.

My MacBook Pro will be asleep (Power Nap is enalbed) and my external USB drive plugged up to the Time Capsule will spin up, then immediatly spin down. Over and over again, back to back. It seems to stop when I wake up my MacBook Pro and start using it.

I do have the drive mounted on the desktop before I close the laptop. I would sure like to know what causes this, though, as it's probably killing the life of my external hard drive.

7.6 firmware causing USB disc spin up/down?