Mavericks 10.9-10.9.1 bug/issue/problem: external drives connected through thunderbolt or firewire are not put to sleep when iMac goes to sleep

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.

My external Firewire drives now spin down properly with 10.9.2.

Edit: For the record I have two 1 Terabyte OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro drives on FW800.

For me 10.9.2 fixes noting: when going to sleep it just keeps on unmounting my FW drive then tells me when waking up from sleep that it was unproperly unmounted.

Mini mid 2011 / OWC Mini stack V3

Honestly, for me FW is completly unusable under 10.9.

Sorry to hear. This has been driving me nuts for awhile. I've tried letting mine sleep through energy saver settings and also from selecting sleep from the menu. Both work as they should, for me anyways. Good luck.

Update (10.9.2) did nothing for me. FW800 drive never sleeps except when Mac shuts down.

Same 2 issues with 10.9.2:

External FireWire drive WILL NOT spin down when Mac goes to sleep.

also

External FireWire drive WILL NOT spin down for inactivity despite “Put hard disks to sleep when possible” is checked in energy saver.

This has been going on since the launch of Mavericks and no solution found yet.

Since the USB ports are the only ones working correctly that is what I am currently stuck with.

azdawg99

Since yours is working, then it must be something different about yours than everybody elses.

Do you have your USB ports occupied with anything else?

Is the only thing connected to your Mac the FireWire External drive then?

Perhaps it's a matter of expectations. When "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" it still takes 10 minutes (unless you take action in Terminal to reduce this time) before the drive actually goes to sleep. So, see what happens if you put your Mac to sleep and then wait 10 minutes. My FW drives (both a OWC RAID enclosure and a NewerTech drive dock) both sleep. Although the fan on the OWC does not stop the drives do spin down.

I had the same issue with 2 WD external drives. one USB2 and other Firewire 800. Make sure Skype is not running. So as i quit the Skype app and the drives go to sleep and wake normally. So my believe, one of the recent updates from Microsoft has developed the issue mentioned. Hope this helps..

At first i thought it might be Plex server, but it was Skype.

Message was edited by: RON SMITH 100

Still no fox in 10.9.2 .... WTH?! 😮

Stefano you are correct, NO FIX. They did fix one of the soin down problems. Now when you eject the drive it will spin down but it will not spin down when the computer goes to sleep nor when there has been over 10 minutes of inactivity.

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.

Same 2 issues with 10.9.3:

External FireWire drive WILL NOT spin down when Mac goes to sleep.

also

External FireWire drive WILL NOT spin down for inactivity despite “Put hard disks to sleep when possible” is checked in energy saver.

This has been going on since the launch of Mavericks and no solution found yet.

USB ports work normally.

I use a little utility Jettison from St. Clair software, which ejects my extenral thunderbolt drives when my nMP goes to sleep and mount them at wakeup. Great utility http://www.stclairsoft.com/Jettison/

I know, it's amazing the one has to use third party software to patch up an OS flaw that apple can't seem to fix.

The external sleep has not been a problem for me, Jettison is just a handy tool for me.