External HDs auto-disconnect/connect

Question

Level 1

4 points

External HDs auto-disconnect/connect

I have three Western Digital external hard drives plugged directly into the USB inputs on my 2015 iMac. All of these hard drives routinely disconnect/reconnect on their own. This is problematic because it causes the connection to my home sharing to be interrupted (movies are saved on HD) and my Photo app to crash (many of the photos are on a HD).

Has anyone else had this or a similar issue? Any idea on whether it is an issue with the hard drives and not the computer?

Any insight is appreciated. Thank you!

iMac with Retina 5K display, iOS 9.3.1

Posted on May 3, 2016 3:51 PM

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Answer 1

ribbo39

Level 1

44 points

May 4, 2016 6:25 AM in response to marniesdpdx

Hi marniesdpdx,

I have a new (Jan 16) iMac 5k with retina display running 10.11.4. Connected to it are three external harddrives (1 x 2TB, 1 x, 1TB and 1 x 250GB) via a USB3 powered hub. All extn. drives are individually powered and from yesterday connection is thru a Thunderbolt 2 powered Dock.

Before I received the dock my h/drive were continally being ejected for no apparent reason but since I made the connection byway of the TB2 dock I find they still continue be ejected.

I have read they will drop out due to their power demand but as they are all indivually powered I cannot believe this is true.

I do not consider the drives have any issues as two of them are recent acquisitions and I routinely run first aid from Disk Utility.

Hope someone else can come up with a clue as to the problem.

Alan

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Answer 2

ember1205

Level 2

189 points

May 4, 2016 6:29 AM in response to marniesdpdx

Have you tried turning off the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" option in System Preferences -> Energy Saving?

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