External hard drive questions

[wornslick]

@ - is there a reason that you feel the need to turn off your computer at night? Indeed, one concept is that the electronics are stressed more w/ daily (or more often) power downs and possibly shortened the life span of your computer - some discussion HERE;

I guess the main reason is the one you listed....

It's brand new and I guess I feel that turning it off when I am not using it will keep it new. I will read the link you posted and will probably just start leaving it on, you guys know a lot more about them than I do! Thanks again to both of you, plus pm-r.

 

[MacInWin]

As RadDave said, there are technical reasons why leaving on al the time is less hard on the electronics. One is that on power up there is an inrush of current into the system that can, in a few milliseconds, overpower some components if they get too much current before the various safety devices kick in fully. This inrush, even if it doesn't burn out something immediately, will stress the components as they head up to operating temperatures and assume their proper function. So, in general, it's better for the devices to leave them running. The one exception is the hard drive, which is a mechanical device and therefore is a mix of electronic and mechanical parts. Power up is hard on the drive because of the same inrush current, but then having the drive constantly spinning is harder on the bearings and drive mechanisms. My feeling is that the drives are still better off running than cycling on and off, but I don't have any science to back that up. I will say that data centers keep the systems powered up 24/7/365 and failures are relatively rare. Your iMac will quite nicely run 24/7 and be quite happy. In System Preferences/Energy Saver set Display Sleep to whatever you want and the monitor will go dark, and set the Computer Sleep to whatever you want. You can even check the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible, and TM will wake everything up to run when scheduled. Then just leave the power on and let it do what it does.

 

[wornslick]

Well it seemed to work, said last backup was at 7:00PM. After reading the link I am going to start letting the mac go into a deep sleep, like you all said it seems to be better than off and on.

 

[MacInWin]

One other thing. I set my system to never sleep the CPU because I found my system lost network connectivity when the router tried to contact it and the CPU didn't answer. Then when the CPU woke up, it didn't find the wireless router because the router had lost the connection. I got in the habit of keeping the CPU awake all the time so that the check-in works. They may have fixed the issue, but I don't care, I keep it the way it works for me.

 

[wornslick]

Jake,

When you say "set the Computer Sleep" are you referring to Enable Power nap in the energy saver box? I do not have that box checked but my screen does go dark after 12 minutes, and I have to hit the space bar to get the screen to come back on and type in my password.

 

[MacInWin]

My system doesn't support Power Nap, so I cannot say. Maybe somebody with a newer system can chime in. On my Energy Saver box I have two settings, one for Computer Sleep and the other for Display Sleep. Nothing for Power Nap.

 

[wornslick]

Went to Apple Support and search for "enable power nap" and this came up....

How Power Nap works on your Mac
Power Nap allows your Mac to do things while it's asleep.

What does Power Nap do?
If your Mac supports Power Nap, these activities can occur while your Mac is asleep:
Mail receives new messages.
Contacts keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Calendar receives new invitations and calendar updates.
Reminders keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Notes keep up-to-date with changes made on other devices.
Documents stored in iCloud keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Photo Stream keeps up to date with changes made on other devices.
Find My Mac updates the location of the Mac, so you can find it while it's asleep.
VPN on demand continues working so that your corporate email updates securely. (Power Nap supports VPN connections that use a certificate to authenticate, not VPN connections that require entering a password.)
Mobile Device Management can remotely lock and wipe your Mac.
And these activities can occur while your Mac is asleep and plugged in to an AC power outlet:
Software updates download
Mac App Store items (including software updates), download in the background
Time Machine performs backups
Spotlight perform indexing
Help Center content updates
Wireless base stations can wake your Mac (Wake on Wireless)

 

[Slydude]

From what I've read about Power Nap it is a finer level of control over some functions than the Energy Saver panel alone provides. The setting you want to adjust is the computer sleep not power nap. More about Power Nap

 

[wornslick]

I think I just figured it out. Went to the Apple symbol in the upper left hand corner and there it was....Sleep

Pressed it and the screen went dark, is this the same as the Energy saver box which is set for 15 minutes, when that time is up the screen turns off?

 

[Rod]

Just one thing, and perhapes i missed it but in your original post you said, "When I moved everything from my old Dell to my new iMac I decided to go ahead and buy a external hard drive to make things easier and to keep everything safe and sound. I purchased a 500GB WD My Passport for Mac. After contacting AppleCare about some other questions I had they told me about Time Machine which I now use. They told me to go ahead and hook the external hard drive up and leave it hooked up".
I assume they also told you to reformat the EHD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) before setting it up as a TM backup. This is because I also assume that the My Passport must have been originally formatted as DOS 32 for use with the Dell. Excuse me if you have already done this but it wasn't mentioned so I thought I'd better ask.

 

[wornslick]

Just one thing, and perhapes i missed it but in your original post you said, "When I moved everything from my old Dell to my new iMac I decided to go ahead and buy a external hard drive to make things easier and to keep everything safe and sound. I purchased a 500GB WD My Passport for Mac. After contacting AppleCare about some other questions I had they told me about Time Machine which I now use. They told me to go ahead and hook the external hard drive up and leave it hooked up".
I assume they also told you to reformat the EHD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) before setting it up as a TM backup. This is because I also assume that the My Passport must have been originally formatted as DOS 32 for use with the Dell. Excuse me if you have already done this but it wasn't mentioned so I thought I'd better ask.

I guess they did but I really don't know. I had Apple Care help me and everything except some software came over.

 

[Rod]

It is easy to check, with your external plugged in, open Disk Utility (in the applications folder in Utilities) and you will see your external HD in the side menu, click on it and at the bottom of this window you will see Mount Point and below that Format. If iFormat says Mac OS Extended (Journaled) you're good to go.

 

[wornslick]

Yes, I just checked it and it does say Mac OS Extended, Thanks for your help Rod!

 

[Rod]

This is a bit odd, I just clicked on the email link to this thread and nowhere can I find your reply wornslick, saying, "Yes, I just checked it and it does say Mac OS Extended, but I did cause a small problem. When I went to Utilities I clicked on the Passport icon under devices and somehow the icon disappeared. I made the mistake of not reading your post and not paying attention to what you posted". Did you by chance edit your thread? Anyhow I think you may have just "Ejected" the drive, unplugging it and plugging it in again will make it reappear.

 

[wornslick]

This is a bit odd, I just clicked on the email link to this thread and nowhere can I find your reply wornslick, saying, "Yes, I just checked it and it does say Mac OS Extended, but I did cause a small problem. When I went to Utilities I clicked on the Passport icon under devices and somehow the icon disappeared. I made the mistake of not reading your post and not paying attention to what you posted". Did you by chance edit your thread? Anyhow I think you may have just "Ejected" the drive, unplugging it and plugging it in again will make it reappear.

Thats exactly what happened, I edited the thread after i tried unplugging and plugging the drive and the icon came back. Thought I would try something before I came asking for more help! LOL

 

[Rod]

Wornslick,I see you are on a steep learning curve. I tell everyone who is starting out with a Mac to experiment especially with System Preferences almost everything can be changed to suit the user and even we occasionally discover new features that we did not know existed. Just recently I discovered that a picture can be dragged from the Photos app to the desktop to create a full resolution copy on the desktop. Previously I had used the Export command. There are at least two ways of doing anything on a Mac. You might like to do some reading on the differences and uses of the Copy, Duplicate and Drag an Drop functions. This is an area that causes some confusion among new users.
There are also some do's and dont's despite the fact that everything thats changed can be changed back easily there are a few exceptions. For example in System Preferences you will see Security and Privacy settings. Under the File Vault tab you will see a statement which says, File Vault secures the data on your disk by encrypting it automatically. Do not be tempted to turn this function on. It will, if enabled encrypt the entire contents of your Mac HD and unless you appreciate the full implications of this it is best left off. As a general rule of thumb any action that requires your admin password to enact deserves consideration.

 

[wornslick]

Yes, I am on a learning curve. Although I am familiar with computers this is my first Mac. I have been watching David A. Cox on You Tube about how to do things on my Mac, and have learned quite a bit. I went and took a look at the File Vault that you mentioned and when I saw the word "Warning" I knew that that is off limits. I have also learned that the folks on this website are great helping people like me with any questions I have, no matter how simple the answer is. Again, Thanks to all! I'll be in touch, I'm sure. LOL

 

[pm-r]

I'll certainly agree with Rod about File Vault, and unfortunately the recent OS X installs and setup's I've helped several people with, Apple is almost demanding that File Vault should be enabled and used right during the setup. Someone should shoot someone at Apple for invoking its use, or at least hold them to task!!

 

[wornslick]

Well I got up this morning and saw a message saying something about ejecting my external hard drive. I noticed the desktop icon has disappeared again. The light on the back of the WD external hard drive is on and not blinking. I went to Finder, Time Machine and it tells me the external hard drive could not be found. Also in Finder, Devices all it says is remote disc. Also tried unplugging and plugging it back in with no luck. I am going to work now so I won't be back until lunch. Thanks in advance.

Update: the light on the back of the hard drive is now blinking.

Update: I have tried a few other things and it almost seems the the computer is not recognizing the external hard drive.

 

[Rod]

Is this your Time machine backup disk?