WD Passport for Mac - contents missing until restart

[buskroth]

I have two WD my Passport for Mac (3TB, 3.0 USB) portable HDDs permanently connected direct to my iMac 27" 2015 Retina (not via any USB hub).



I use one as TimeMachine and one as storage for photographs.



I permanently leave my iMac turned on.



After a couple of days (intermittent time frame), the contents of the two HDDs disappear. The drives still show on my desktop and in finder, but the contents are not there. The power lights still flash on the HDDs as if working too.



This also causes the TimeMachine backup to fail.



Things I have already tried:

1) in the WD software, turned off the power save option

2) removed the drives from Spotlight search



I still have the same problem though.



Does anyone have any ideas on what else I can try?



many thanks!

 

[Weaselboy]

1) in the WD software, turned off the power save option

I would completely remove all WD software. That seems cause people more trouble than it is worth.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I agree with Weasel.

In my opinion, the WD software does not do anything crucial, that a user can't do on his or her own. The other aspect is the WD software is notorious for either not working or breaking with every Mac update.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

If you go to WD Software pages you will see they are more interested in Windows than Macs, and formatting the drive to Fat32.

Do what the two above suggest. Uninstall it and work through System Preferences.

 

[Fishrrman]

I agree with most of what's above.

1. Get rid of the WD drive software.
2. Reinitialize drives to HFS+, journaling enabled. DON'T use a "cross-platform" format on drives that are intended to be Mac-only.
3. I'd also suggest you shut down and then restart the Mac once in a while, at least every other day or so. Things just run cleaner after a "fresh start".

 

[buskroth]

Thank you everyone, I will try this and let you know the results...