Mac mini Hard Disk not sleeping

Posted by: Asenna04 on 27 January 2010

I have added a Mac Mini (current model) on to my system running SqueezeServer (7.4). The music is stored on a wired (via modem/router) NAS drive (QNAP TS-109) with the 2 squeezeboxes connected wireless via the modem/router.

The issue is I can't get the Mac mini hard disc to sleep despite having the right settings in the Energy Saver in System preferences.

This is what I have in in Energy Saver:

Computer Sleep - Never (If I let the computer to sleep, the squeezebox screens go blank, I want to display the time and date in the squeezebox off mode)

Display Sleep - 10m (This works fine)
Put hard disc to sleep when possible - Selected
Wake for network access - Selected
Allow power button to put computer to sleep - Selected
Start up automatically after a poer failure - Not selected

I understand by selecting 'Put hard disc to sleep when possible' the default time for inactivity before the hard disc goes to sleep is 10m. However it does not even when I check after a few hours, the hard disc is still spinning.

I expected the computer to be on and available with the hard disc sleeping. This will help since about 98% of the time the Mac will not be in use and I want to avoid unnecessary wear and tear with the hard disc spinning.

I wonder if the 2 Squeezeboxes are causing this since their display is switched off if the mac sleeps.

Does anyone have a similar setup and get the Mac mini hard disc to sleep?

I will also post this on the Logitech forums to see if anyone there has same issue or a solution.

ASenna04
Posted on: 27 January 2010 by Alfa4life
quote:
Originally posted by Asenna04:

Wake for network access - Selected


ASenna04


Have you tried turning network access off ? There could be network traffic which is causing it to stay awake.

Graham
Posted on: 27 January 2010 by Asenna04
[/QUOTE]
Have you tried turning network access off ? There could be network traffic which is causing it to stay awake.

Graham[/QUOTE]

I tried that with no luck. I think that is only relevant when you have the Mac sleeping and it wakes up for network access. I am not letting it sleep at all because the Squeezebox screen switches off if there is no connection to SqueezeNetwork. I know you can have SqueezeNetwork running and the hard disc sleeping because that is how I had it on QNAP NAS. The reason I moved to Mac is that the QNAP is too slow and I get poor response on iPeng (the iPhone App).

ASenna04
Posted on: 27 January 2010 by pcstockton
It seems one can get better advice on IT in general here rather than an actual computer forum. NOT being pejorative in the least. It just says much about the collective intellect here and our gracious hosts.

-p
Posted on: 28 January 2010 by Keith L
How can you tell if it's still spinning? My new mini with an internal Hitatchi 500g drive is silent and vibration free. I use the same settings.
Posted on: 28 January 2010 by Asenna04
Keith,

You raise a valid question. I was judging by putting my hand on it and feeling the vibration. But your question made me think that the vibration could actually be coming from the QNAP NAS that sits next to it. So I switched off the QNAP and the vibration was not there on the Mac.

I know the QNAP NAS HD was spinning down (HD Sleeping) when I had the SqueezeCenter on it, but now that the SqueezeServer is on the Mac Mini and it is reading the music from the QNAP, the Mac mini could be causing the QNAP NAS not to spin down.

The question I now have is how can you tell when the Mac Mini HD sleeps. Are there any logs?

Now I need to figure out how to make the QNAP HD to sleep. Bugger!

ASenna04
Posted on: 29 January 2010 by garyi
Hard to tell if the drive is asleep really, you can sometime see a small pause when trying to do something as the drive spins back up.

My feeling is don't worry about it. 2.5inchers seem to be more reliable than their bigger brothers (touch wood like)