External Hard Drives & Sleep Mode

[jodr]

Is it possible to have an external HDD connected to an iMac or Mac Mini on a regular basis? I have a Power Mac G4, and it's always had issues with going into sleep mode when there is any external storage connected via the USB 2.0 ports (and I've put in replacement ports to try and remedy this, to no avail). The main problem is that once the system wakes up, it thinks you've improperly removed the device. Apple told me, way back, that this was normal and to just eject all external storage before going into sleep mode. Which is a pain, but looking at a new desktop Mac I would like to just get the tiny, base HDD and use a beefy external for all my media - unless this is still an acceptable norm with new macs.

Thanks!

 

[Hellhammer]

I have 4 external HDs which at least 2 connected all the time and my iMac sleeps like a baby. HDs goes to sleep as well but wakes up when I wake my iMac and works flawlessly then. I've heard some people having the same problem as you so it might be related to certain Macs or HDs