External harddrive won't shut down in Mavericks

Thanks Ozzies, I may try to run the LaCie on the USB port. It may slow down things, but better for hard drive health, if it works..

My External Seagate is working fine, though. Better under Mavericks than previously. It's all beyond my tech knowhow. Help, Apple!!

I hooked up the LaCie to the USB 2 port and it now sleeps. For some reason my Seagate 2 TB does not have issues with fire wire. It sleeps and awakes as expected.

So the issue is resolved until Apple issues a fix.

Mavericks 10.9.2 is currently being beta tested and hopefully Apple will address this issue which has been overheating external drives for a lot of us the went with this free upgrade. 10.9.1 ignored it all together.

Should soon find out.

Thanks, OzziesMAC. I keep checking for an upgrade. Your comment is the first indication I have had that Apple is paying any attention this situation.

FWIW, I just installed 10.9.2 Combo on my 2010 iMac 27" i5 and the problem is somewhat corrected. My external hard will spin down when ejected but still won't spin down when the computer goes to sleep. Maybe 10.9.3 can do it.

Confirmed, 10.9.2 solves this. Hard drives spin down when ejected. Finally!! 🙂

Sort of fixed.

Yes it does spin down after ejected now. YEAH!!!

Drive will also spin down when Mac goes into sleep mode now. YEAH Again!!!

It does not spin down after 10 minutes of no access to it. 😠

When "Put hard disc to sleep when possible" is checked it has a default setting of 10 minutes.

It will not spin down.

My 2 FW drives do not spin down when in sleep mode. They keep spinning for hours. Have to use USB which is slow as syrup, but at least it works.

Disappointed by Apple who force us to upgrade OS to keep up with compatibility,but then give is a very unfinished product.

Just wish there was an alternative.

+1

Interesting.

My drives have always spin down after a couple of minutes of no access, even before 10.9.2. My only issue was the one when you eject them and they did not power down...

That sums it up pretty well.

1) will sleep when ejected

2) will sleep with computer sleeps

3) will not sleep after the 10mins of inactivity either mounted or ejected

All I need is item 3 fixed. While an ejected drive does now sleep, the system can spin these drives up after certain events like waking from sleep or certain programs. If spun up, they will stay that way until you mount and eject the drive again.

I'm back to using the ultra slow usb2 interface on my enclosures until item 3 gets fixed (if ever).

Yes!

External drives have returned to normal behavior,

now spinning down after being ejected.

Rocstor, Lacie, OWC all functioning as they did prior to Mavericks.

Strange this wasn't tested before a major OS release.

Oh well, the fix (at least for me) is in.

OS 9.2 may have modified the bug so that some people have stopped seeing it but it is not fixed. As before, none of our external drives spins down when ejected:

On a recent mini, several Mediasonic USB3 docking stations and a Lacie FireWire 800 drive.

On another recent mini, a NexStar USB3 docking station.

On an older iMac, a NexStar USB3 docking station.

The hard drives are an assortment of models from Western Digital and Seagate.

I updated to 9.2 but will wait until Apple lists this problem as fixed in the list of bug fixes. Until then I will run the LaCie as a USB drive.

My Seagate 2 TB still drive works fine. Go figure. What does Seagate know that LaCie doesn't.

I am using an iMac of early 2008 vintage. If this matters.

I updated to 10.9.2 but my WD in Macally enclosure hooked to FW800 still does not sleep when Mac sleeps. I guess will wait (again) for 10.9.3 release but I'm not holding my breath.