Mavericks and External Hard Drives

Thanks Mickey BlueEyes for your update.

I actually still have a full warranty and tech support on my Mac Mini.

Just not sure how Apple will handle my situation. I purchased the Mac Mini to use as a server and I access it while on the road. If I continue to use it that way I will no doubt shorten the life of my external drives, heck I already lost one from overheat becuase I was not aware of the issue.

The update has crippled the use of the Mac Mini with my setup, so unless they fix it soon I wonder what warranty reolutions options I will have.

I read in another thread that the problem is related to filsharing with SMB. Turning SMB off and having AFP on, now the FW drive goes to sleep as well. SMB is on the agenda for 10.9.2 so hopefully there is a fix soon.

Tried turning off SMB and no impact to FW drive not sleeping.

Also turned SMB off and no difference. FW drive will not sleep even after ejecting it.

Apple Senior CPU Advisor called me back today, only to confirm what we already new.

"We are aware of the problem and are working on a fix..." "...In the mean time use the USB ports."

They would not give me an estimated time frame for a fix, and they would not tell me when did they become aware of this issue.

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.

I found the same thing after installing 10.9.2, and I even did repeated reboots after installation. It's too bad that this firewire problem made it to the release version of Mavricks and is still hanging around after this update. Though the .3 update usually puts and end to most of the original release problems. Here's hoping.

Same problem here since update frpm OS X 10.8 to 10.9. 😠

It's very, very poor support from Apple!!!

We are now entering month 6 and 2 updates later with the same unresolved issue.

Please report it to Apple here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Tell them your problem and how long it's been.

Just got off the phone with Applecare and they admitted that there is a problem. I opened a case (No resolution) and sent feedback again. When External Hard Drives are connected via Firewire they no longer will spin down when computer is put to sleep or when "Put Hard Disks to sleep when possible" is checked in System Preferences. Have tried several different brand external Hard Disks. ( La Cie, Western Digital & Seagate ) All of these external Hard Disks worked in Lion but will not spin down using Mavericks when connected via Firewire. If the external Hard Disk is connected via USB 2 they work perfectly and will spin down when not in use and also when the computer is put to sleep. I have updated to 10.9.2 and still not resolved.

I have also lost an external hard drive. Have reverted to USB 2 ( No USB 3 on my Mini 2011 )

remnett wrote:

Just got off the phone with Applecare and they admitted that there is a problem. I opened a case (No resolution) and sent feedback again..........

Well! That's progress I suppose. After (6 months is it?) we have got only to the stage that Apple acepts that there is a bug (and then only privatley to a customer). Another 6 months to a cure?, by which time there will be yet another OS, with perhaps another bug. I really am loosing faith in the magic of Apple.

It is feeling disappointing that this Firewire external drive bug has not been fixed as of yet. I still wonder how such a bug made it through all of the beta and developer testing before intial release to the public. Hopefully Apple jumps on this for the next update to Mavericks, since they spearheaded Firewire.

I have a growing feeling that Apple doesn't care to fix the bug because they have effectively abandoned Firewire in favour of Thunderbolt (and to a lesser extent, USB 3) so by leaving this bug we will be encouraged to update our equipment and move on.

Just my 2¢ worth...

Still broke in 10.9.2 ... really poor Apple. WTH?! 😮

You do have FREE 90 day support on OS upgrades even if your warranty is expired.

Just call Apple Care at 1-800-277-5322 with your Mac Serial Number and ask to speak

with a senoir advisor about your issue with 10.9.2.

The more they here from us helps move this issue on the priority list of fixes.