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Western Digital External Hard Drive...

W

w0by

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 29, 2007
158
2
Chicago, IL
I have a WD External HDD. Everytime it goes to sleep it disappears from my Finder in OSX and then I have to turn the power off on the HDD and turn the power back on for it to reappear in my OSX. It's rather annoying - in Windows it just stays there and you click on the icon and it will wake up. Is there any way to force OSX to search for the HDD or something and not delete it every time it goes to sleep?

Thanks!!
 
Don't let the HD's sleep! Its not good for them anyways. HD's can only endure so many spin-up's and spin-down's. That will fix the issue. If you go to System Preferences, and then Energy Saver, there's a check box that asks about putting the HD's to sleep. Uncheck that box.
 
mklos said:
Don't let the HD's sleep! Its not good for them anyways. HD's can only endure so many spin-up's and spin-down's. That will fix the issue. If you go to System Preferences, and then Energy Saver, there's a check box that asks about putting the HD's to sleep. Uncheck that box.
Click to expand...

Huh? Link?
 
In other words, a motor inside the hard drive spins the discs up to 5400/7200RPM every time you bring it out of spin down (sleep) mode. Well, the motors will only handle that so many times. Its not good for a hard drive to be spun down and back up all the time. Eventually it will wear out. No links needed, I know from experience. This isn't meant to start a keep the computer on or off debate. Lets not go there!
 
mklos said:
In other words, a motor inside the hard drive spins the discs up to 5400/7200RPM every time you bring it out of spin down (sleep) mode. Well, the motors will only handle that so many times. Its not good for a hard drive to be spun down and back up all the time. Eventually it will wear out. No links needed, I know from experience. This isn't meant to start a keep the computer on or off debate. Lets not go there!
Click to expand...

^^^^^^^

What he says.
 
mklos said:
Don't let the HD's sleep! Its not good for them anyways. HD's can only endure so many spin-up's and spin-down's. That will fix the issue. If you go to System Preferences, and then Energy Saver, there's a check box that asks about putting the HD's to sleep. Uncheck that box.
Click to expand...

This doesn't work unfortunately.

The annoying thing about this is that I bought it to store all my iTunes tunes. When it sleeps- iTunes automatically changes its Music Folder location back to the default location without telling you.:mad:
 
I have a WD 1TB external HDD and I have none of the problems you are reporting. I just hooked mine up and it's been flawless ever since. Maybe it's an issue with your specific HDD?
 
same problem

vin*tone said:
This doesn't work unfortunately.

The annoying thing about this is that I bought it to store all my iTunes tunes. When it sleeps- iTunes automatically changes its Music Folder location back to the default location without telling you.:mad:
Click to expand...

I too have this problem.
I have had a series of WD external drives to store my itunes folder and they all worked flawlessly until I upgraded to a 1tb WD my book. Its connected to my imac via fw800.

This drive came with some rather hand software called WD smartware. This allows you to select the time the drive goes to sleep which is generically set to 1hour. I had my set to 'never' but still have this issue. I have to shut down itunes, mount the drive and start itunes up again.

I think it is most likely an issue with this new generation of WD external hard drives.
 
djbigeye said:
I too have this problem.
I have had a series of WD external drives to store my itunes folder and they all worked flawlessly until I upgraded to a 1tb WD my book. Its connected to my imac via fw800.

This drive came with some rather hand software called WD smartware. This allows you to select the time the drive goes to sleep which is generically set to 1hour. I had my set to 'never' but still have this issue. I have to shut down itunes, mount the drive and start itunes up again.

I think it is most likely an issue with this new generation of WD external hard drives.
Click to expand...

Ive just found and tried this - I will let you know if it works for me.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/31158/keep-drive-spinning

Best Regards
 
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