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sheich0608

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 15, 2019
25
12
Hi all,

I have a 13" MacBook Pro without Touch Bar (2017), and I've noticed a seemingly odd behavior while it's sleeping with an external USB hard drive attached. At what appears to be random intervals, I can hear the hard drive switch on, whir, and make noise (this happens at various times during the night; my desk is next to my bed). However, the time the disk is awake seems to be roughly between 10-30 seconds. The disk is a Time Machine disk as well as a general backup disk (two partitions).

Is this a normal behavior? What might cause this? I know MacBooks periodically can check for email while asleep, is this a byproduct of this feature? Or maybe it's Time Machine? It's kind of weird to hear the drive turn on at night...

Thank you for your input!

-sheich0608
 
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