USB exFAT Disk Access without cease (spotlight disabled)?

Hi,

I initially upgraded to Sierra when it first released. I had a few issues & crashes at that time, so quickly Time Machine reverted back to El Capitan.

Now, much later, I just am giving Sierra another go...though one of the major issues I was having is still present, which I am hoping you all might be able to help me resolve.

Basically, I have a USB 3.0 external hard drive (Touro Pro 1TB, if that's noteworthy) that is formatted at exFAT & plugged into my system. The disk is accessed continually and never stops, despite Spotlight being disabled for that drive -- which was the fix for El Capitan.

I am curious if anyone has a solution for this, as otherwise I am going to have to (yet again) revert back to El Capitan...since this will undoubtedly burn out my hard drive & hinder read/writes when actually using the drive.

I'm running on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013).

Any suggestions or solutions are greatly appreciated. 🙂

Thank you,

John

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12), Late 2013 Retina 15"

Posted on May 24, 2017 1:56 PM

20 replies

Tesserax

Level 10

161,160 points

May 24, 2017 2:03 PM in response to mook33

Although OS X or macOS can work with ExFAT drives, Macs work better with them formatted in HFS+. Is there a reason you cannot reformat the external drive for HFS+?

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,253 points

May 24, 2017 5:06 PM in response to mook33

Try using What's Keeping Me? to see what applications/processes are accessing that drive.

VikingOSX

Level 10

129,632 points

May 25, 2017 4:25 PM in response to MadMacs0

Time Machine requires Spotlight indexing on the Time Machine volume, and this will occur regardless of whether that volume is included in Spotlight Privacy or not.

VikingOSX

Level 10

129,632 points

May 25, 2017 4:43 PM in response to mook33

Did you install any vendor software that may have come with the drive, or check the vendor's site to see if there is a firmware update for the drive (that might make it compatible with macOS)?

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,253 points

May 25, 2017 5:13 PM in response to mook33

Can you confirm that you are not using that drive as a Time Machine backup so we can all exclude further discussion of that possibility?

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USB exFAT Disk Access without cease (spotlight disabled)?