NAS on Aiport Extreme constantly spinning up

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NAS on Aiport Extreme constantly spinning up

I have a 5th gen airport extreme with a 2TB NAS drive in the USB port. I use this HDD as a time machine backup, and to hold various other items I dont want on my Computer hard drive.

The problem is it CONSTANTLY spins up the NAS drive. Sometimes its once every 5 minutes, sometimes 2 or 3 times in a minute. I am not transferring anything to/from the drive during this. It backs up as time machine every hour on the dot, and hasnt missed a backup in months. When it is not backing up, it just ocnstantly spins the drive up. Over and over and over again.

Any ides as to what may be causing this?

Thanks.

Airport Extreme 5th gen-OTHER

Posted on Apr 25, 2013 6:18 PM

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Answer 1

HossBud

Level 1

15 points

Apr 25, 2013 8:37 PM in response to H-Town 808

It's likely your Mac touching files on the drive, especially if you have it mapped to your Finder. I have external drives (one Time Machine, the other just files) attached directly via FW800 and USB, and they'll just spin up randomly while I'm browsing in Safari with no obvious reason. I gave up trying to find the reason.

The only concern I have is the wear on the drives from the incessant on/off cycles, so I think I'm going to just set the option in Preferences --> Energy Saver to disable "Put hard disks to sleep when possible". I'd rather they just spin than constantly cycling.

I'm sure that's no help, but I figured maybe my tale of giving up might give you some peace.

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Answer 2

May 6, 2014 10:34 PM in response to H-Town 808

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.

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