Iomega Minimax Advice

[paulobrad]

I'm looking to buy an Iomega Minimax to compliment my MacMini but a key question someone who owns it already might be able to answer;

I've had issues in the past with external HDs not powering down after a short while of not being accessed, I leave my mini on the whole time and it's in my bedroom so it's important it spins down after a period of non use but can auto spin back up when required. Does it do this successfully?

Cheers.

 

[jaglad]

Hi,

I have got the 1TB version of this drive. I have found when connected via firewire the drive will spin all the time even when the computer is asleep it will keep spinning.

Yet when connected via USB is spins down and up as necessary, and yes if it spins down due to non activity it spins up again with no problem.

The one thing I dont like about the drive is the noise, there is a rubber plate on the bottom of it, but does nothing to stop the vibration, I have stuck a couple of runs of draught excluder type stuff on the bottom of mine, this has reduced the vibration as well as making the noise of the mechanism (seagate btw) barely noticeable.

HTH

 

[paulobrad]

Mmm, thanks jaglad.

I'm looking more at a western digital MyBook now I think but again worried about both noise and whether it will dynamically spin up and down when in use to save power and more importantly the 24/7 spinning of a drive I leave plugged into a MacMini I use as an always on media server.

It is just me or is the whole area really sketchy - there seems no standard as to whether external HDs can gracefully cope with spinning up and down. The fact you are getting different results with USB and Firewire simply compounds my point.

 

[jaglad]

Yes I quite agree, that is what is frustrating with external drives.

What makes things worse with the MiniMax is it has both Firewire and USB hubs, which is great, but, as you can use both hubs at the same time, the computer will connect to the drive via firewire and then let you use other devices via USB. This is great until you put the machine to sleep, as the drive is connected via Firewire the mechanism keeps spinning, if you then flick the drive off by the power switch it then wakes the mac up. Very annoying if you ask me!