Hard drive goes into sleep mode and never wakes

johnnyg88 · Post by **johnnyg88** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:21 pm

Hey guys,

This problem just started yesterday with my External HD. Everything will work fine while I'm running DP 6.03. If I let it sit too long, my HD goes into sleep mode but then it will never wake up. The program slows down like it usually does while the drive wakes up again but then it stops responding. Next thing, I can't eject the drive or access any other files on it, even Finder locks up.

Any ideas? I doubt this will help, but I will probably back up the drive and format it.

Thanks

jg

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:36 pm

I hate to suggest the obvious, but can you just go into the Energy Saver control panel and designate your drives to never spin down? That's pretty much the convention for DAW usage anyway.

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 9:16 pm

James has it right. +1

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 10:26 pm

+ 1/2. While the energy preferences usually work, some new "green" drives may go to sleep regardless of the System Preferences. Not worth it, IMHO.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:29 am

cuttime wrote:+ 1/2. While the energy preferences usually work, some new "green" drives may go to sleep regardless of the System Preferences. Not worth it, IMHO.

Yep... that's why I bought a WD Caviar BLACK last time... just to avoid the so-called "green" drives which I'm sure would be fine in less-demanding applications, but not for DAW use.

johnnyg88 · Post by **johnnyg88** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:45 am

Yeah, my Energy Saver settings already have the Hard Drive sleep mode turned off. I think it's the drive itself that goes into sleep. It never really was a problem because it would sleep when I would step out for a minute and when I'd come back it would take a few seconds to spin back up. Now it doesn't seem to wake up from that. I'm worried my drive might be on its way out, so I'm backing up as we speak. Like I said, I'm going to try to format and reload everything but I believe this to be a hardware problem, so I have my doubts. It's worth a try.

Thanks guys!

jg

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:59 am

I don't know man... driver are (relatively) inexpensive. If yours isn't one of those "green" drives that do this automatically, I'd see if you could return/exchange it. Even then I wouldn't take a chance and I'd replace it with another-- making sure it isn't a "green" drive... like a WD Caviar Black or something. It's just too risky from what you've described.

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 10:01 pm

It is possibly not the drive.

Many external enclosures such as my Newer Mini Stack 3 have an "intelligent power" system that turns it into a deep sleep - or even off - when not in use. System settings have no effect on this. Definitely not recommended for DAW use but great for Time Machine and off-loading of files.

If this is a new issue and it was performing well before, suspect the enclosure (it could still be the drive, BTW).

You don't tell us what your system is. If a tower, throw the raw drive inside and it should perform fine - much better, in fact.

"Green" drives are great for Time Machine, word processing, off-loading files etc. My Mini Stack has one and it is great. I have it hooked to my iMac by eSATA - can't be happier. My work files and active projects always sit on my 7200RPM internal, however.

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