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Does Apple care if your hard drive burns out?

Many people have reported that their Firewire external hard drive will not spin down, even when not active after installing Mavericks. So whether you are using your drive, or not even using your computer, your firewire drive will be spinning away causing extra heat, wear, and energy usage and greatly reducing the life of your drive. My drive does not run as cool as most. It was running so hot that the aluminum case would burn your skin if you touched it for more than a second. I'm sure my drive would have not worked for long if I hadn't turned it off when I did. Apple representatives say that the cause is a chipset used in the drive not carrying out instructions correctly and that they have no intention of working to fix someone else's problem. It just seems strange that this has only been a problem with Mavericks. And shouldn't Apple notify their users that there is a problem with a chipset that could cause your external drive to burn up?

Posted on Jul 11, 2014 10:52 AM

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18 replies

Jul 11, 2014 2:56 PM in response to Eric Root

I kind of agree with you on one hand. But on the other hand, since the drives have worked on every other version of OS X, it seems like they would want the users to know that most Firewire drives will not be fully compatible with Mavericks. At least I would think they would add a note to the Mavericks download page now that there are so many forums and blogs discussing this issue. My Apple satisfaction level is down no matter who's fault it is that my firewire drives do not work right.

Jul 11, 2014 8:17 PM in response to tbirdvet

Here is my test on Mavericks 10.9.3 on a Late 2013 15" rMBP.


My FW device (this is an external Macally PHR-S250U3B - JMicron chipset - containing a Samsung 840 Pro 512). It is connected via a TB-FW adapter.


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With rMBP lid open, no AC power and "Put hard disks to sleep" is not checked.

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With lid closed...

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With AC attached (same test)

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Same test without the TB-FW adapter on a 13" 2012 MBP, which has a native FW800 port.


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Lid open...

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Lid closed...

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Re-opening the lid...

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I have seen a lot of issues with Lucent chipsets used in older enclosures.

Aug 6, 2014 4:39 AM in response to tbirdvet

"FW drives should sleep with Mavericks as they always have with all previous versions. Apple dropped the ball on this one."


Alleluia! No truer words have been said in regard to this long-standing issue!


Why can't Mavericks (and what follows) support the older chipsets for Firewire, since many of the external FW drives were added (and made) during the active lifetime of supported machines? And why all the mystery if this was a conscious change by Apple in the code regarding interaction with chipsets? It should either be fixed, or noted in support documents that older FW drives may not be compatible. The later not being an acceptable solution to most of us.😟

Aug 6, 2014 4:45 AM in response to MacLion

At some point compatibility with older versions is dropped to accommodate new features. The consumer has a choice not to upgrade their OS. My test clearly shows it works.


I still run SL 10.6.8 and refuse to upgrade to any other OS on a machine that starts crawling when Mavericks is put on it. I have an old PPC mini that still works on Tiger.

Aug 27, 2014 7:25 AM in response to tbirdvet

tbirdvet wrote:


The reason your FW drive shuts down when you close your cover is because the drive is USB port powered which is powered down on your laptop when you close the cover. Try hooking this up to AC powered (if possible) and see what happens when you close the cover.


I have only a FW connection, there is no USB connection as you can see in the images I posted. The Macally enclosures do not allow both connections simultaneously. If both are used, it causes file corruption (inode corruption).

Does Apple care if your hard drive burns out?

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