Do you set your drives to sleep when possible?

[dogbone]

sudo pmset disksleep 0

0 = don't sleep the drives, any other value is minutes until sleep.

My external drive used to sleep within 10 minutes (the OS X default) but even with Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible unchecked it would still sleep, it wasn't until I researched pmset that I figured out it was just sleeping after 3 hours (another OS X default). Ever since I've set pmset disksleep 0 my external drive doesn't sleep at all. No more beach balls of death in Finder for me.

OK that looks better, but I'm sure there was an '-s' command in your original post. I'll see if I can dig it out.

EDIT:

 

[risc]

Don't worry about that -s it's just a typo, it won't make a difference to the command though.

 

[dogbone]

Don't worry about that -s it's just a typo, it won't make a difference to the command though.

typos in Terminal using the 'sudo' command

 

[risc]

typos in Terminal using the 'sudo' command

UM... if you actually read the command you'll notice that it is a typo in relation to sudo itself, nothing to do with the actual command you are running. In fact all that -s would do is cause the command to not run, because -s is trying to drop sudo to a shell, giving you root access without having root enabled. I fixed it up for you though to make you happy.

 

[dogbone]

<theatrically wipes brow with forefinger >

OK I've set it but while you're here. How does one return it to what it was?

 

[risc]

If you want to return it to the defaults of having the drives sleep all you need to do is check the box again in System Preferences. If you want to set the drives back to Apples default sleep after 3 hours when "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" is unchecked you need to run "sudo pmset disksleep 180".

If you type pmset -g you can see the current settings on your machine.

HTH

 

[dogbone]

Oh good thanks. I didn't realise that the engergy saver prefs overrided the pmsleep setting.

 

[risc]

They are the same thing