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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

Previous to Mavericks (10.9 - 10.9.1) I've had no issues with external firewire or thunderbolt connected drives to be put to sleep. However, since Mavericks all of my external drives are not put to sleep when my iMac, or Mac Pro go to sleep.

How can a company such as Apple, pushing people to have external devices like hard drives, is not on top of fixing this issue? Apple pushed for firewire and thunderbolt, thus All external drives I've owned are firewire. Because of speed. I bought thunderbolt adapters for firewire, and before Mavericks all worked great. Now that we have 10.9.1 update, this is still an issue!

I'm aware of the temporary solution of connecting the drive through USB to make it work, this is not a solution, but a hack.

Please let Apple know that this is a known issue, and there should be a fix for it. Everyone's data depends on it! Not only current external backups, but also external sensitive hard drives we rely on. Currently, the following makes are experiencing this issue: Lacie, OWC (Elite Pro), WD, Promise, Seagate, Toshiba, G-Drive.

Other Apple Support Communities related thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5486167?start=60&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5488413?answerId=23541363022#23541363022

External References:

http://blog.macsales.com/21004-upgrade-to-mavericks-drama-free-with-owc

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1659332&page=3

If anyone finds how to solve this issue, please help by posting the steps or solution.

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), iPad 1 and New iPad 2012

Posted on Dec 17, 2013 10:49 AM

35 replies

OzziesMAC

Level 2

183 points

Aug 8, 2014 5:28 PM in response to remnett

According to Apple thats a "New Feature".

I think its a cop out, but the issue does not go away with Yosemite Beta either.

remnett

Level 1

22 points

Aug 9, 2014 1:56 AM in response to OzziesMAC

My external drives under firewire do spin down and go to sleep when I put the Mac to sleep. The only problem I continue to have is that they will not spin down (Sleep) with inactivity "Put Hard Drives to Sleep When Possible", when the option is checked under Energy Saver, but only when connected via Firewire. Works fine on USB2. So I think some users are experiencing both problems. Kind of weird. I personally think the response I received from Apple was a cop out also. Can't believe their lack of concern. In my humble opinion this should be considered a major problem.

remnett

Level 1

22 points

Aug 19, 2014 4:40 AM in response to remnett

I am happy to say that today I finally received and installed a

Kanex KTU10 Thunderbolt to eSATA Plus USB 3.0 Adapter

and both USB 3 and eSATA Connected external drives are sleeping and spinning down during inactivity.

Aug 31, 2014 9:38 AM in response to remnett

Jettison has worked perfectly well for my needs forcing sleep on all my FW800 drives:

http://www.stclairsoft.com/Jettison/index.html

JDW1

Level 1

65 points

Dec 29, 2015 5:50 PM in response to innocentius

innocentius wrote:

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/

But app that seems to be for MacBook users, not iMac users like me.

Even under the latest version of El Capitan, my OWC Mercury Elite Pro enclosure (purchased recently in Dec. 2015) with 1TB HDD inside will not sleep/spin-down when I put my iMac11,1 to sleep. It's connected to the Mac via FW800. I use it for Time Machine and therefore I want it to spin down when the iMac sleeps and spin up when the iMac wakes.

Are there no solutions?

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