mrnelson06

Q: external hard drive connection

Facts:

I'm having trouble keeping an external hard drive connected to my AirPort Time Capsule (running version 7.7.3). I have a powered external hard drive connected via USB to the AirPort. Typically after a reboot of the AirPort, my MacBook Pro (running 10.11.4 El Capitan) will see the external drive under my Shared devices in Finder and is able to read and write with the drive. For this discussion, I have my iTunes library on the external drive, so each time I was to open iTunes on my MacBook Pro, I have to make sure the external drive is mounted/connected so iTunes can access the library.

 

Problem:

If the drive isn't used for a while, I have to reconnected to drive. To do that, I open Finder, click on Airport Time Capsule under Shared and wait for the the drive to appear in the main finder window. The problem I run into is that 1) the external hard drive never appears as a drive on the AirPort, thus I can't connect to it, or 2) the drive appears and when I click into it, I get an error message saying "The operation could not be completed because the original volume could not be found."

 

My Attempts to Solve:

The only solution I've found is to restart the AirPort from the AirPort Utilities menu, and restart my Mac at the same time. After they both boot up again, I am able to connect to the external drive properly and can work with it. Sometime after this -- it's been as short as a hour or as long as two days -- the drive will "unmount" and fail to connect again.

 

I've tried using different hard drives to see if it was a drive hardware problem, and the error occurs on different drives (all of them are powered drives).

 

Thoughts:

I thought it could be related to the external drive spinning down after a period of inactivity, but I haven't been able see if that is case. Again, the only way I can get the drive to reconnect/re-mount is to the restart the AirPort

AirPort Time Capsule, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Apr 18, 2016 9:50 AM

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Q: external hard drive connection

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  • by LaPastenague,

    LaPastenague LaPastenague Apr 18, 2016 3:16 PM in response to mrnelson06
    Level 9 (52,310 points)
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    Apr 18, 2016 3:16 PM in response to mrnelson06

    I think our help will consist of emotional commiseration rather than do this and it will be all better.

     

    Sometime after this -- it's been as short as a hour or as long as two days -- the drive will "unmount" and fail to connect again.

    The problem has always been around but it seems the latest version AC airports are particularly prone to it.

     

    Unfortunately Apple has removed all logging and there are simply no tools to access the router.. and see what the problem is.

     

    My guess is bonjour is failing.

     

    Thoughts:

    I thought it could be related to the external drive spinning down after a period of inactivity, but I haven't been able see if that is case. Again, the only way I can get the drive to reconnect/re-mount is to the restart the AirPort

    Yes.. spin down is related to the issue..

     

    When someone else here complained I did a lot more testing and found the same.. I tried all the known cures and nothing worked..

     

    Re: External backup disk drops out regularly

     

    BUT I did mount the drive in Finder.. (Must use SMB to mount).

     

    And by keeping the drive active and spinning it did remain available. Until the noise of it drove me around the bend.

     

    I am not even 100% sure of how I kept it active.. other than having it permanently mounted in finder.. !!

     

    If the disk is USB3 I have an idea that it has more issues with newer USB chips.. very unproven but I keep trying to get people to give me info into a database.

     

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5912861?tstart=0



  • by Tesserax,Apple recommended

    Tesserax Tesserax Apr 18, 2016 3:22 PM in response to mrnelson06
    Level 9 (54,040 points)
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    Apr 18, 2016 3:22 PM in response to mrnelson06

    Unfortunately, a number of drives are designed to power-down when not in use. This is typical of "green" drives. I believe most external USB drives are in this category.

     

    Something that you may want to consider. You could mount the drive when you startup your Mac by adding a script to your login. I do this for my "home share" drive and this seems to solve the problem for me.

     

    To mount your drive at startup, create an AppleScript, and then, use System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items to run it at startup.

     

    The script should look something like:

    (Note: This script assumes that you share out the USB drive with a disk password.

     

    try

    mount volume "smb://<base_station_name>.local/<disk_share_name>" as user name "<you can enter anything here>" with password "disk_access_password"

    end try

  • by marsiglia,

    marsiglia marsiglia Apr 22, 2016 10:00 PM in response to mrnelson06
    Level 1 (4 points)
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    Apr 22, 2016 10:00 PM in response to mrnelson06

    Some work, some don't. I have experienced the same problems over the years. It seems like a wake-from-sleep issue. Drives that work wake from sleep just fine, but many don't. Some draw too much power, causing the Apple router to report an error, but this post concerns only flaky hard drive connectivity via an Airport Extreme Base Station.

     

    In my experiences with a half dozen or so, connected to both my 3d generation and 6th generation Airport Extreme Base Stations, it seems to be related to the hard drive enclosure. I have purchased both portable hard drives and empty external enclosures in which I installed various bare drives, and had the same trouble. Various drives and enclosures that work perfectly when directly connected to my Macs won't maintain a sustained connection via WiFi when connected to an AEBS. Others work perfectly as Network Attached Storage (NAS) via my 3rd and 6th gen. Airport Extreme Base Stations.


    My experience is that for a little while after start-up, the disks are mountable over the Wifi network as expected, and I can read and write to them. After a little while/few minutes, they spin down and sleep and then cannot be mounted again. The computer connection to them drops even during a sustained copy operation, preventing completion. This prevents using them for back up or streaming purposes. Restarting the AEBS restores connectivity for a while, but then the same issue reoccurs. This affects some of my hard drives and portable drives and not others.I think it's the enclosures. Some bare drives that work in one of my enclosures don't work in another. I don't know how to identify an external or portable drive or bare enclosure that will work except through trial and error.


    From Other World Computing (macsales.com), a Mac-specific vendor, I have purchased two of their store-brand "Mercury Elite" enclosures for 3.5" hard drives, one in year-2012 that included a 2 TB drive and one late last year that was empty, into which I installed a new 5TB bare drive that was initially flaky in another empty enclosure that I had bought for it (to save money). Both my OWC Mercury Elite enclosures work flawlessly. Unfortunately, these are expensive in comparison to the alternatives. I also have an "OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro 2.5" Portable USB Enclosure" in which I installed my MacBook Pro's original Apple OEM hard drive after an upgrade. This one gives me the same trouble when connected to the AEBS, regardless of which of my 4 or 5 laptop drives I put in it. I bought an external power supply for it in the hope of resolving this, but that had no affect. This On-The-Go enclosure and indeed all of my portable hard drives and enclosures works just as one would expect with a direct computer connection--just not with either of my AEBSs.


    I read somewhere back in 2012 that connecting the drives to the AEBS through a powered USB hub eliminates some issues, so I tried a couple of hubs then. I now don't remember what issue it resolved for me, but an unpowered hub did not fix it and a powered one did. I am still connecting all of my drives to the AEBS through this hub.


    I am doubtful that the trouble correlates much with quality or expense. I guess there is some small technical detail in a chipset or firmware that accounts for the variability. The drives in my OWC Mercury Elite enclosures sleep and wake just fine. I can hear them spin down and back up on demand. They are available 24/7.


    I seldom have trouble with my current set-up, which enables me to access files at home from my office over the internet. Once in a while, these disks become inexplicably inaccessible. On those occasions, restarting the AEBS restores connectivity. I think it is an AEBS crash or other issue; the drives are fine. Sometimes an on-off power cycle is necessary, but I usually have success restarting just the AEBS using Apple's Airport Utility, even remotely over the internet, without touching the drives or cycling the power. Another trick that seems to help sometimes is turning off disk access using Airport Utility and then switching it back on.


    I have tried to fine-tune a Google query that will zero-in on the problem of hard drive compatibility with the AEBS, but I have had no success. My past experimentation benefitted from having a handful of old drives and enclosures around to play with, but I would like to be able to tell the compatible from the incompatible because I am looking again for another bare drive or an external enclosure/drive.

  • by LaPastenague,

    LaPastenague LaPastenague Apr 22, 2016 11:49 PM in response to marsiglia
    Level 9 (52,310 points)
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    Apr 22, 2016 11:49 PM in response to marsiglia

    Excellent post. Thanks for sharing your experience..

     

    I guess there is some small technical detail in a chipset or firmware that accounts for the variability. The drives in my OWC Mercury Elite enclosures sleep and wake just fine. I can hear them spin down and back up on demand. They are available 24/7.

    Plug it into a Mac and get the USB chip number for me.

     

    I outlined how to do it here.

    USB drive compatibility with Airport Routers. Help make database.

  • by marsiglia,

    marsiglia marsiglia May 9, 2016 8:25 PM in response to LaPastenague
    Level 1 (4 points)
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    May 9, 2016 8:25 PM in response to LaPastenague

    Done. To your 'database' page/post, I added a screenshot from Apple System Profiler and a link to my original post, above, describing my experiences.

  • by LaPastenague,

    LaPastenague LaPastenague May 10, 2016 3:54 PM in response to marsiglia
    Level 9 (52,310 points)
    Wireless
    May 10, 2016 3:54 PM in response to marsiglia

    Thanks.. it all helps to keep track.