External Hard Drive Call When Saving/Web Site?

[ericswyatt]

I'm not what to call this, barely how to describe it, so if this has been answered elsewhere, I'd appreciate being pointed that direction.

The problem: I have a 2011 iMac (which I love) but there is a little hitch in the giddy up that drives me partially insane. Several times a day, if I go to save/exit a program (typically Pages, since I spend most of my life in pages) but it has also happened with Text Edit, Mail, Tweetdeck, and Safari, and when I select Quit, everything freezes for about ten seconds. What happens during these ten seconds? Well, I have a Western Digital external (usb) hard drive where I back up the local drive via Time Machine, and when this pause happens, that hard drive spins up and starts running. I know this because the drive is sitting on the desk beside me and it vibrates. Occasionally this happens when I open a new page in Safari, too. It's like the system pauses to call to the hard drive for some reason, but I don't know why that would be the case. I don't store files or any information, that I know of, on that drive, and it isn't starting up for an actual Time Machine backup...any thoughts?

 

[GGJstudios]

It happens because Mac OS X knows you want to save a file, but it can't anticipate where you might want to save it. In preparation, it makes ready any drives that are mounted, so you can choose where you want to save the file. Even though you may have no intention of saving to that drive, Mac OS X has no way of knowing that in advance. If you want to prevent the delay, eject the drive until you're ready to use it.

 

[ericswyatt]

Well. Ok. I guess I'll just have to live with it, because I have time machine set to back up hourly. I was kind of hoping, though, the external drive could sit there and not be a drag on the system except when TM was doing a backup...it's an annoyance, but I suppose I can live with it.

Thanks for the info.

It happens because Mac OS X knows you want to save a file, but it can't anticipate where you might want to save it. In preparation, it makes ready any drives that are mounted, so you can choose where you want to save the file. Even though you may have no intention of saving to that drive, Mac OS X has no way of knowing that in advance. If you want to prevent the delay, eject the drive until you're ready to use it.

 

[excommie]

Have you tried unchecking System Preferences - Energy Saver - "Put Hard disks to sleep when possible"?