Mounted external drives and Mac sleep mode

[madmaxmedia]

I have an external 3.5" Firewire drive connected to my eMac at all times.

If the eMac goes to sleep (say when I leave it unattended for awhile), the Finder gets a bit wonky with the external drive. It's still mounted, but I can't access it (the Finder freezes when I try.)

I can turn the drive off which basically gets things back to normal, but then I get the warning message about not properly removing the device. I don't think any harm will actually be done, but since my family uses the computer this is sort of inconvenient.

Does this happen with all external drives? My drive enclosure was relatively cheap, so I'm wondering if a different enclosure would do the same thing.

 

[tilman]

No, this is certainly not how it is supposed to work. Sorry, I don't know how to help you debug this problem further.

 

[madmaxmedia]

No, this is certainly not how it is supposed to work. Sorry, I don't know how to help you debug this problem further.

That actually helps in itself. What does normally happen? Does the Mac eject the drive before going to sleep, or should the drive work fine after the Mac wakes up?

Thanks!

 

[blodwyn]

That actually helps in itself. What does normally happen? Does the Mac eject the drive before going to sleep, or should the drive work fine after the Mac wakes up?

Thanks!

Normally, nothing happens. My iMac has 3 external drives permanently attached, 1x firewire and 2x USB. I sleep it and wake up several times a day, and never have the drives disconnecting or get any messages.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Gotcha, thanks. I think it's time for me to buy a new enclosure...