External hard drives won't go to sleep after inactivity

[amoergosum]

I'm using a 2019 iMac and macOS Mojave 10.14.6 .

My external hard drives won't go to sleep anymore after inactivity.

I checked 'Put hard discs to sleep when possible' in system preferences.


Does anyone else have this issue? What can I do about it?

 

[Fishrrman]

You could do what I do:
If I'm not going to be using the drive for a good while (for hours or even days) -- I just disconnect it.

That works 100% of the time...

 

[MSastre]

I'm using a 2019 iMac and macOS Mojave 10.14.6 .

My external hard drives won't go to sleep anymore after inactivity.

I checked 'Put hard discs to sleep when possible' in system preferences.


Does anyone else have this issue? What can I do about it?

I don't remember that working for external drives .. key words "when possible". Like Fishrrman, I always unmount and turn them off manually. I don't want my drives to shut off automatically because of working with video.

 

[DeltaMac]

I'm pretty sure that "feature" is dependent on the external drive interface - the enclosure or cable that connects to the hard drive. Some manufacturers provide that function, others do not.

 

[mikzn]

I'm pretty sure that "feature" is dependent on the external drive interface - the enclosure or cable that connects to the hard drive. Some manufacturers provide that function, others do not.

Some apps can prevent the drive from "sleeping" if they are open and if they check on files that are on that drive

I used to use a script for a "One Click" desktop option to un-mount and re-mount some drives that were permanently connected and would spin all the time, but I gave up on that and now just unplug the drives when not needed

Some of them are back up drives and CCC gives me an alert when it cannot find the drive, and I reconnect them as needed

 

[fisherking]

some drives (g-tech, for example), seem to never sleep; my seagate drives do sleep...