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Why Does my HDD Spin When My SSD is my Boot Drive?

M

MOKHAN

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 19, 2011
341
9
Toronto, Canada
I have a 128GB Crucial M4 in the main bay of my 2011 13" MBP.
I have the stock 320GB HDD in an optibay. All my boot files/applications/data was copied with Carbon Copy Cloner to my SSD from my HDD.

The M4 has been set as my boot drive, however, while using my laptop, the HDD still seems to spin. For example, sometimes when I quit an application after leaving my MBP idle for a while, the HDD needs to spin up before it actually quits. I'm not completely sure why this is happening, considering everything is on my SSD.

Any suggestions?
 
I've got the same set up but I dont hear my HDD spin. I did a clean install though if that matters.
 
MOKHAN said:
I have a 128GB Crucial M4 in the main bay of my 2011 13" MBP.
I have the stock 320GB HDD in an optibay. All my boot files/applications/data was copied with Carbon Copy Cloner to my SSD from my HDD.

The M4 has been set as my boot drive, however, while using my laptop, the HDD still seems to spin. For example, sometimes when I quit an application after leaving my MBP idle for a while, the HDD needs to spin up before it actually quits. I'm not completely sure why this is happening, considering everything is on my SSD.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

because the mbp still has to turn on the hdd
 
appleguy123 said:
It's normally the optical drive that spins to make sure that you don't want to boot off a disk. I think that the HDD is spinning because it's checking for install media.
Click to expand...

It could also be that when a hard drive first receives power after a restart it spins up by default.......?
 
/user/me said:
It could also be that when a hard drive first receives power after a restart it spins up by default.......?
Click to expand...

That would make sense. Though, I'm confused why my HDD needs to spin up when I quit applications. That must mean my HDD has some information which needs to be accessed, correct?

I don't completely understand why, all my information is on my SSD.
 
Some processes access the HDD, simple as that. Can be system apps or background apps, not necessary apps you open.
 
If you don't want to use it for extended periods of time, you can un-mount the HDD by ejecting or trashing it. You can then re-mount the HDD in Disk Utility if when you want to use it again.

You should be able to either find, or write, an Applescript to do this easily.
 
In my experience
the save dialog always spins up every hdd in the system.
Spotlight keeps it from spinning down especially when it tries to initialize a NTFS drive.

Set the spin down time shorter and the save dialog isn't as big a problem.
terminal
> sudo pmset -a disksleep 1
for 1 minute, default is 10
Exclude everything on spotlight that doesn't need indexing, especailly all ntfs drives.

If that still doesn't solve it unmounting helps. With the app Alfred I used to trigger my mount/unmount script. That is quick and nothing spins up unless you tell it too.
 
dusk007 said:
In my experience
the save dialog always spins up every hdd in the system.
Spotlight keeps it from spinning down especially when it tries to initialize a NTFS drive.

Set the spin down time shorter and the save dialog isn't as big a problem.
terminal
> sudo pmset -a disksleep 1
for 1 minute, default is 10
Exclude everything on spotlight that doesn't need indexing, especailly all ntfs drives.

If that still doesn't solve it unmounting helps. With the app Alfred I used to trigger my mount/unmount script. That is quick and nothing spins up unless you tell it too.
Click to expand...

If my HD's name is "Macintosh HDD", how do I specify it in that command?
Thanks.
 
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