OSX Randomly spins up external hard drive, really annoying

[midgetsanchez]

So I have an external hard drive hooked up to my MBP via USB. I've noticed that every now and then (maybe every half hour or hour?) the drive spins up. It's actually really annoying, as the drive makes a loud sound as it spins up.

I can't figure out why it does this; the drive spins up and then goes back idle. Time machine is DISABLED, spotlight index on the drive is DISABLED as well. I use the drive solely for storing movies/music. There are NO applications installed on it. The only apps I have open are finder/preview/safari/firefox/adium/itunes. My guess is that some process is trying to access the drive for whatever reason now and then.

Does anyone know what might be the culprit? Help is appreciated.

 

[Kelly Craig]

When it starts spinning up, pull the cord out of the machine causing that device removal error to appear.

then go log hunting, see what else bitched that the drive left.

 

[midgetsanchez]

Thanks for the advice. I did as you suggested, hit the power switch on the drive as soon as I heard it spinning up. These are the logs I pulled from console:

8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel IOBlockStorageDriver[IOBlockStorageDriver]; executeRequest: request failed to start!
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel disk1s2: device/channel is not attached.
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel jnl: disk1s2: flushing fs disk buffer returned 0x6
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel disk1s2: media is not present.
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel jnl: disk1s2: do_jnl_io: strategy err 0x6
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel jnl: disk1s2: write_journal_header: error writing the journal header!
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel disk1s2: media is not present.
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel jnl: disk1s2: do_jnl_io: strategy err 0x6
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel jnl: disk1s2: end_transaction: only wrote 0 of 57856 bytes to the journal!
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel disk1s2: media is not present.
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel disk1s2: media is not present.
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM UserNotificationCenter[15506] Can't open input server /Library/InputManagers/MultiClutchInputManager.bundle
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM mds[33] (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/88CC8FD8-2532-457E-B76D-C9E5B581BD15)(Error) IndexCI in store_stream_flush:store_stream_flush write err:22
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel jnl: disk1s2: close: journal 0x6debe08, is invalid. aborting outstanding transactions
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM mds[33] (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/88CC8FD8-2532-457E-B76D-C9E5B581BD15)(Error) IndexCI in _ContentIndexSyncIndexBulk:Sync error live.0.
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM ntfs-3g[7661] Unmounting /dev/rdisk1s1 (External HDD)
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel disk1s1: media is not present.
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM ntfs-3g[7661] Failed to sync device /dev/rdisk1s1: Device not configured
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM kernel disk1s1: media is not present.
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM ntfs-3g[7661] Failed to close volume /dev/rdisk1s1: Device not configured
8/4/09 1:06:06 AM KernelEventAgent[36] tid 00000000 received VQ_DEAD event (32)
8/4/09 1:06:10 AM com.apple.launchd[872] (0x10f270.Locum[15512]) Exited: Terminated
8/4/09 1:06:24 AM kernel USBF: 384431.415 AppleUSBEHCI[0x6a6d800]::Found a transaction which hasn't moved in 5 seconds on bus 0x24, timing out! (Addr: 0, EP: 0)
8/4/09 1:06:24 AM Console[15513] Can't open input server /Library/InputManagers/MultiClutchInputManager.bundle
8/4/09 1:06:24 AM Console[15513] Can't open input server /Library/InputManagers/MultiClutchInputManager.bundle
8/4/09 1:06:24 AM Console[15513] Can't open input server /Library/InputManagers/MultiClutchInputManager.bundle

I can't really tell, it looks like time machine is responsible? I have a time machine volume on the drive but time machine backups are DISABLED. Also, the drive powers on even if my computer is idle. This is baffling.

 

[paulbeattie87]

I had the same problem, I had two external drives connected one was used for time machine the other was just storage. It sounds extreme but I was buying it anyway, I've connected the drives to time capsule now they never spin up unless I request .

You could do the same with Airport Extreme as well. I had the same problem on Windows with it accessing drives that had spun down. Pain but it seems to be the norm.