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Lacie disk on FW not sleeping after installing Mavericks

On my 2007 iMac, with a LaCie D2 Quadra. This has been connected for years with FW800, and the power switch on the disk is set to Auto. When sleeping the Mac, the disk has always gone to sleep. After installing Mavericks, the disk does not go to sleep after sleeping the Mac when connected with FW800 or FW400, but will sleep if connected with USB2.0. Any ideas?

Posted on Oct 24, 2013 3:08 PM

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255 replies

Oct 25, 2013 8:31 PM in response to cybermike

I too have noticed the same problem since upgrading to Mavericks. My La Cie Quadra drives connected by FW 800 do not spin down when putting the iMac (late 2009, 27" 2.8 GHz core i7) to sleep. Frankly, it does not seem like the internal HD spins down, as when I touch the keyboard, I don't hear it spinning up either, and the computer seems to wake immediately as if the screen had just gone to sleep without the computer going to sleep. Energy save system preference checked and "put ard disk to sleep when possible" is still checked.

Oct 26, 2013 1:29 AM in response to mroadster

Can confirm that this is an issue, and it's not only affecting LaCie drives. It does seem to affect FireWire drives in general.

Got three WD drives connected to my iMac, two by FW, one on USB. After installing Mavericks, the USB drive sleeps when the iMac does, the two FW drives stay awake.

Swapped out the FW cable for a USB cable on one of the FW drives - and now it DOES sleep.


So it seems like external drives in general, when connected by FireWire, won't sleep on Mac OS X Mavericks.

Oct 26, 2013 12:22 PM in response to jcgraff

I read posts elsewhere on Apple Support Communities and other websites. Some recommended SMC reset and others zapping the PRAM. Neither worked for me.


What I found was that if I unmounted my external drives and unplugged the FW 800 cord from the computer that the computer would go to sleep normally when commanded to do so. I subsequently hooked the drives up to the iMac with a USB cable, and both the computer and drives go to sleep properly, though it takes 20-30 seconds after the screen goes dark for the drives to spin down, which is longer than I recall pre-Mavericks. The external drives do not wake up from sleep until they are accessed.


I rehooked the FW800 wire from computer to the drives, which are wired in series., keeping the USB connection to the drives hooked up and the sleep problem did not return. My impression is that the connection in use between the computer and external drives is USB presently as there is no problem with the drives going to sleep when connected in the above sequence. If I eject the drives and remount them with both USB and FW800 connections, the problem with the drives not sleeping returns.

Oct 26, 2013 12:50 PM in response to mroadster

Same here. Have three external enclosures (inXtron SK-3500 Super-S3) all connected via FireWire 800 and all of them do not spin down the drives neither on Sleep nor Eject since upgrading to Mavericks. Tested with three different Macs (iMac 2008, MacBook Pro 2009, MacBook Pro 2011).


Used to work with Mountain Lion.


Funny thing is, when connecting the external drives via USB they DO spin down on Sleep or Eject.


Only workaround so far - full shutdown.


Hope to get some fix soon.

Oct 27, 2013 10:49 AM in response to mroadster

I'll add my two cents because this is a serious issue for me - 4 external FW Drives, 2 LaCie D2 Quadra & 2 G-Tech, all connected in series using FW-800. Mavericks fails to spin them down when it ejects them, goes to sleep, or based on the 'put disks to sleep' preference in energy saver pref panel. The one exception is that it intermittently spins down one of the G-tech drives, the last in the chain, when it is not in use, although it does not do so reliably nor does it follow the disksleep time set by pmset.


Kinda takes away from the green direction Apple is trying to go....

Lacie disk on FW not sleeping after installing Mavericks

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