09-06-2010, 12:25 PM

I have a new Imac with Snow Leopard and a WD Mybook 1tb external USB drive attached.
Drive is partitioned in 2, one for Time Machine and 1 for storage, 500 gig each.
The drive is constantly spinning up and down, even when I'm not on the computer.
It's not Time Machine, I use Time Machine Editor set for 3am for backups.
Anyone know why it's always spinning up on a regular basis? Every few minutes it does this.
Is this normal?

09-06-2010, 06:32 PM

My guess is that the WD MyBook is set to sleep or spin down after a certain time. (built into firmware) And when the system "polls" attached devices, the MyBook has to wake up.

I keep my external Time Machine drive unattached until I'm ready to backup, be it once a day or once every several days. No point adding wear and tear to the drive by having it spin up and down every time the system polls it. Re-think your backup time and set it to when you're awake and at the computer. Then you can remove the drive until the next day or when you're ready to make another backup. You won't need Time Machine Editor if you use that method.

09-06-2010, 10:20 PM

I figured it was something simple like system polling but wanted to make sure. I tried setting "put drives to sleep" in power settings but it didn't make any difference.
Just might go the keep it unattached route as I don't really use it that much, although one partition is my Photoshop scratch disk also.(tho that can be changed)