Ejecting Time Machine backup disk

[Tulani]

i have a dilema,
how can i properly deal with this eject warning problem?
do i have to pull out my external drive each time before my iMac goes to sleep incase it wakes up and tells me each instance that the disc was not properly ejected?
how are you guys getting around this?

 

[flynz4]

It may be specific to your external HDD. I'm not sure.

We never let our iMacs go to sleep. We do activate a blank screensaver and require a password after the screensaver activates. We also have the monitors shut down after an hour. They go into such a low power state that the impact is minimal.

The other recommendation is to get a Time Capsule and back up to that. It has the advantage that you can physically place it someplace else in your house (we keep our 4 TCs in a secured location) so that if your computer is stollen, it becomes unlikely that your backup data is stollen along with your computer.

/Jim

 

[Bear]

i have a dilema,
how can i properly deal with this eject warning problem?
do i have to pull out my external drive each time before my iMac goes to sleep incase it wakes up and tells me each instance that the disc was not properly ejected?
how are you guys getting around this?

I have yet to run into a problem with sleeping a Mac with external drives attached. If your drives are connected via a USB hub, that could be causing the issue. Or less likely, but still possible could be damaged or substandard USB cables.

Or it could be an issue with the drive(s) you are using.

As a workaround if you can't figure out what is causing the issue, you only need to Eject the drives and then if you need to when you wake the system from sleep go in to Disk Utility to mount them again.

 

[Tulani]

I have yet to run into a problem with sleeping a Mac with external drives attached. If your drives are connected via a USB hub, that could be causing the issue. Or less likely, but still possible could be damaged or substandard USB cables.

Or it could be an issue with the drive(s) you are using.

As a workaround if you can't figure out what is causing the issue, you only need to Eject the drives and then if you need to when you wake the system from sleep go in to Disk Utility to mount them again.

I am using a 1TB USB3 my passport premium western digital drive connected direct to iMac and I wouldn't think there is anything substandard.

 

[Bear]

I am using a 1TB USB3 my passport premium western digital drive connected direct to iMac and I wouldn't think there is anything substandard.

Or damaged. Things happen. You could have a drive that has an issue.

 

[Tulani]

Or damaged. Things happen. You could have a drive that has an issue.

Understood. One question though. Is an external drive normally is not supposed to warn this way if the iMac goes to sleep?

 

[Bear]

Understood. One question though. Is an external drive normally is not supposed to warn this way if the iMac goes to sleep?

I have a couple different brands of external drives and I leave them mounted when I sleep my system. I have yet to have a warning or error related to them when the system awakes from sleep. My iMac is about 3 years old.

 

[Tulani]

I have a couple different brands of external drives and I leave them mounted when I sleep my system. I have yet to have a warning or error related to them when the system awakes from sleep. My iMac is about 3 years old.

So there could be my problem then

 

[jchfriis]

I am using a 1TB USB3 my passport premium western digital drive connected direct to iMac and I wouldn't think there is anything substandard.

I have the same setup/hardware and the same warning sometimes.

 

[Tulani]

I have the same setup/hardware and the same warning sometimes.

Am not alone then. So how do you get round this problem. I have resolved to eject and pull out my disc each time I sync with my time machine.

 

[Swordylove]

You're not alone. It happens with my Seagate drive as well. But not too often and quite random. I leave the drive plugged in all the time. When I get the warning after waking the machine (and the external drive ejected itself), I just plug the USB out and in again.

I wanted to call Apple, but since it doesn't happen too often, and I can't prove that the problem is with the iMac, I decided to just ignore it.

 

[Tulani]

Ejecting Time Machine backup disk

You're not alone. It happens with my Seagate drive as well. But not too often and quite random. I leave the drive plugged in all the time. When I get the warning after waking the machine (and the external drive ejected itself), I just plug the USB out and in again.

I wanted to call Apple, but since it doesn't happen too often, and I can't prove that the problem is with the iMac, I decided to just ignore it.

I wouldn't say its a crisis either. Just thought the setup could have run much more smoother

 

[MeFromHere]

I am using a 1TB USB3 my passport premium western digital drive connected direct to iMac and I wouldn't think there is anything substandard.

You might have barely-adequate power for the drive. What's the power rating of the drive? What else is connected to the Mac's USB ports, and how much power do those devices need?

The Mac certainly tries to put the disk in a safe state when going into sleep mode. Unless the drive is buggy, that part should be working ok.

But when everything wakes up, the drive might momentarily go offline if the USB power budget is over-subscribed. Depending on the Mac model, you might not be able to get maximum power out of all USB ports at the same time.

I never see this sort of problem with the external time machine drive on my iMac. But my drive doesn't use bus power; it has an external power supply.

 

[Tulani]

You might have barely-adequate power for the drive. What's the power rating of the drive? What else is connected to the Mac's USB ports, and how much power do those devices need?

The Mac certainly tries to put the disk in a safe state when going into sleep mode. Unless the drive is buggy, that part should be working ok.

But when everything wakes up, the drive might momentarily go offline if the USB power budget is over-subscribed. Depending on the Mac model, you might not be able to get maximum power out of all USB ports at the same time.

I never see this sort of problem with the external time machine drive on my iMac. But my drive doesn't use bus power; it has an external power supply.

It is just about the only device connected to my 27' iMac

 

[Bear]

Since a few people have mentioned the eject problem. For those of you having a problem, are your drives USB (or Firewire) powered or do they have their own power supply?

All my drives have power supplies and I have not seen this issue.

 

[MeFromHere]

It is just about the only device connected to my 27' iMac

"Just about"? That's not a very helpful answer.

If there are no other USB devices attached to your Mac, just say so. If there ARE other USB devices, please list them.

 

[Tulani]

"Just about"? That's not a very helpful answer.

If there are no other USB devices attached to your Mac, just say so. If there ARE other USB devices, please list them.

The only other device connected to a USB port is my 1000VA APC ups. This connection is just for power management so that the iMac shuts down when there is a powercut and the ups drains down below a set limit

 

[Swordylove]

Since a few people have mentioned the eject problem. For those of you having a problem, are your drives USB (or Firewire) powered or do they have their own power supply?

All my drives have power supplies and I have not seen this issue.

USB powered.

 

[macthefork]

The drive you mentioned is USB buss powered. And, you mentioned you have it plugged directly into the iMac. A console log file (applications > Utilities > Console) would likely show when the external drive is "disconnected" improperly during the sleep process.

I suspect it's occurring at the "wake" moment when the USB buss has to power the 1TB disk at spin-up, causing a dip in the buss power leading to the improperly disconnected disk warning.

If the log shows it's happening at the "wake" moment, then a Powered USB hub would likely fix the problem. Or, use a powered (or smaller) external drive.

I have external drives connected through a powered hub and have rarely encountered a problem like that. (the only time I did, it was related to static electricity)

 

[Chippy99]

I have seen problems like this with external drives. I have a LaCie Blade Runner USB3 drive that quite frequently has problems, a Freecom USB3 drive that occasionally has problems and a Samsung USB3 drive that very rarely has problems. I have has 3 LaCie Blade Runners in fact and they are all the same.

This experience is on 2 separate late 2012 iMacs, through hubs or direct, USB powered and self powered.

So it is clear to me something is just not quite right. I think the common denominator is USB 3.0. This is Apple's first go at USB 3.0 and I think their driver is a little buggy.

 

[Tulani]

Thanks guys. Your input has been enlightening. Anymore discussion and contribution will still be welcome.

 

[davidra]

It is drive-dependent. If you search you'll find my struggles with this. I had a Fantom Greendrive that did exactly the same thing. The company finally admitted that their USB bus was incompatible with the Mac's and I returned the drive. Got a Lacie Porsche drive and have never had the problem again. Apparently the Apple USB3 bus is dicey and a number of external drives aren't compatible when the computer goes to sleep.

 

[Chippy99]

Apparently the Apple USB3 bus is dicey and a number of external drives aren't compatible when the computer goes to sleep.

I am sure you are on to something here. That said, it's a bog-standard Z77 Ivybridge chipset, so very unlikely to be anything wrong with the hardware, or we would see these problems everywhere.

Incidentally, I have issues with my LaCie in that it will not power down when I shutdown my iMac. LaCie have replicated this behaviour and confirmed there is an issue. But here's the thing: it works perfectly from Bootcamp. So we can be pretty sure this is an OS X software issue and not the hardware. I really do think it looks like the Apple USB 3.0 driver has some issues.

 

[Tulani]

I have just bought a USB hub and connected my external hard drive on there. Now it seems to hold even when the iMac wakes from standby. I hope this solution lasts but still not sure where the problem lies.

 

[Tulani]

thats the hub that I am using