My Mac mini M1 2020, when connected to an external HDD drive via any USB port constantly spins the drive down and back up about every 30 seconds. I believe this is hard on the drive and will lead to early failure, not to mention extremely annoying to listen to. I have older Intel Mac minis from 2018 and 2014 that do not exhibit this behavior. Why is this happening and is there a work-around to prevent it?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Mac mini (M1, 2020)
Sorry for not being more specific on the HDD. It's an Acasis 2 Bay External Array with 2 HDDs installed (WD and HGST, both 3TB, which I have since changed to 2 identical HGST drives to eliminate that factor). The drive has its own power and is connected via USB 3.0 (USB-A or USB-C with adaptor). After much experimentation, I determined it was the Acasis enclosure itself that was spinning the drives down. The spin ups were perhaps macOS touching the drive(s) for some reason. I confirmed this by taking the drives out of the Acasis enclosure and attaching them directly to the Mac with a SATA-USB harness with its own power supply. Connected in that fashion, none of the drive cycling was observed. I think the Acasis, being a "smart" enclosure is being just a bit too zealous in its own enegy management.
Sorry for not being more specific on the HDD. It's an Acasis 2 Bay External Array with 2 HDDs installed (WD and HGST, both 3TB, which I have since changed to 2 identical HGST drives to eliminate that factor). The drive has its own power and is connected via USB 3.0 (USB-A or USB-C with adaptor). After much experimentation, I determined it was the Acasis enclosure itself that was spinning the drives down. The spin ups were perhaps macOS touching the drive(s) for some reason. I confirmed this by taking the drives out of the Acasis enclosure and attaching them directly to the Mac with a SATA-USB harness with its own power supply. Connected in that fashion, none of the drive cycling was observed. I think the Acasis, being a "smart" enclosure is being just a bit too zealous in its own enegy management.
How is the HD powered, is it a buss powered drive or a drive powered by its own power supply? If it is buss powered then that may be the issue. Also, have you done ANY troubleshooting such as looking at the Mac OS settings for your drives or power management or anything else?
Go to System Setting > Energy and uncheck “Put drives to sleep when possible”
if you do not see that setting or it does not help…?
Please proved more detailed information about the external drive.
(make, model, format and what the drive is used for)
Yes I tried all the Energy Saver and pmset options before turning to this forum. I was led to believe by posts elsewhere that this might be a known issue. But as I explained in my previous post, the problem/behavior was entirely with the Acasis 2-bay RAID enclosure. The M1 mini is not to blame.
3.5 inch (for backup 2.5in HD or SSD is cost-prohibitive). I'm a retired Apple engineer and I have a number of Mac minis in my collection for daily use or experimentation with Linux, TrueNAS, OMV, etc. Part of my setup is a media server hosting my personal movie collection (ripped DVD + iTunes). I have lots of individual drives and my dilemma is how to best to organize with maximum efficiency and minimal cost and protect against single drive failure. Commercial NAS platforms are expensive so I'm trying out low-cost dual-bay DAS enclosures to reduce the sheer number of power bricks and USB cables I have to deal with (when you're retired, you obsess about these things). I also have dedicated Carbon Copy Clone backup volumes for both system and data drives as well as Time Machine volumes (dedicated and shared) for each system. I also host all this tech not far from where I sleep so noise is a factor.
Yea' I would move the drives to another dual bay or to individual enclosures.
What do you use these drives for..?
Are these 2.5" or 3.5" drives..?
I recommend the empty two bay or four bay units from OWC.
Thanks for the tips. I'll check them out.
You're welcome.
How can I stop Mac mini M1 from spinning HDD?
