Mac Mini 2014 keeps waking up for a minute while sleeping (Catalina)

[Populus]

Hello there.

My Mac mini wakes up pretty often. It is sleeping, and suddenly without touching any key, it wakes up without turning on the display, you can hear the sound of the spinning drive and the light.

Today I am going to replace the spinning HDD for an SSD, and I wouldn’t like it to be waking up and sleeping constantly. I won’t hear it anymore, but the use of the disk will be there.

What is causing my Mac to wake up every 30 minutes / 1hour while sleeping? Is it the Ethernet connection? Is it the Power Nap feature? Or is it something implemented on the last operating system, regarding the sleep mode?

I’d like to prevent this but I don’t know how. Any ideas or suggestions are welcomed.


Also, in order to preserve the SSD integrity, would you suggest changing the sleep mode to not copy the RAM content into the SSD? Thank you.

 

[Duncan68]

I've noticed my 2018 mini waking up more frequently since I installed Catalina, too. Sometimes the screen wakes up and my Apple Watch unlocks it. Not good.

 

[fricotin]

My 2012 mini won't go to sleep at all using Energy Saver.

 

[astrorider]

It sounds like Power Nap. I would try disabling that and see if it helps:

What is Power Nap on Mac?

Power Nap lets some Mac computers do tasks like checking for email and backing up even while they’re in sleep.

support.apple.com

"If your Mac has a hard drive (HDD) or a Fusion drive, you might hear sounds from the drive as it comes on during a Power Nap update, during operation, and when the drive turns off. You have the option to turn Power Nap off."

 

[fastlanephil]

Also try resetting the NVRAM/PRAM.

 

[Fishrrman]

Shut it down at night.
Then it won't bother you.