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DESCRIPTION
Keep Drive Spinning...This applet makes sure that a connected drive never goes to sleep (that is, that it never spins down).
Normally this can be controlled using the Energy Saver preference pane in System Preferences, and that should be your first resort in dealing with the problem, rather than this or any other third party software. However, some external drives (e.g. Western Digital's MyBook drives) do not respect the System Preferences settings, so for them an alternative like this is needed.
This applet simply creates a launch agent that tells OS X to touch a hidden file on the selected drive once every minute so that the drive stays awake.
Launch agents are built-in OS X technology and persist across reboots, etc., so you can run this once to set-it-and-forget-it. You can find the launch agents made by Keep Drive Spinning in the LaunchAgents folder of your user's Library folder.
WHAT'S NEW
- Adds the ability to customize the interval for how often OS X will touch the drive.
- Adds a quick, one-click button to stop keeping a drive awake (as well as simple instructions on how to do the same thing manually).
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
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| Keep Drive Spinning User Reviews (5 posts) | Write A Review |
 | Dec 2 2009 |
GREG_K Under Leopard the "mind-of-its-own" sleep behavior of my WD MyBook wasn't quite enough of a nuisance to prompt me to look into it, since when asleep the drive would wake up only when it was needed. With Snow Leopard, however, this changed; it was spinning up and "beach-balling" the system upon all sorts of user actions seemingly unrelated to it. (For instance, I recall first noticing this shortly after upgrading, when it spun up when I launched Dictionary.app.) Thus it went from being an occasional, predictable annoyance to a frequent unexpected one. A bit of research led me to your applet, which works like a charm. Many thanks.
(Version 1.1) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Nov 1 2009 |
FINN WILLIAM MARKUSSEN Thanks! exactly what i was looking for! My WD My Book Studio Edition II 4tb threw esata on pci-e esata card did constantly go to sleep mode as i use this disk to backup my other disk's every 1 hour, this then gave me spinning umbrella and a 3-4 sec delay when open/fiddling in finder and pathfinder. Now whit this app, i can work undisturbed without 3 sec spinning umbrella. Thanks!! :)
(Version 1.1) | |
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| Jun 13 2009 |
SMARTYGUY I love this simple little script. It works perfectly for what it's intended. My external drive spinning down had been such an intractable problem and now I have complete control of it (and any other drive). I've read about a number of other solutions, all of which have been much more complicated. | |
| [ 1 Reply - Reply ] | |
| Apr 27 2009 |
For example: "sudo pmset -c spindown 0" will stop any drive from spinning down when you are hooked up to AC. More options in the man page. Stop your external drives from spinning down the proper way. No need for this at all.
(Version 1.0) | |
| [ 3 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
 | Apr 27 2009 |
SESQUIPEDALIAN True for most drives. But Western Digital's MyBook drives have their own built-in energy saving settings, and don't respect pmset's instructions. (The Energy Saver preference pane's option not to let drives sleep does the same as fiddling with pmset on the command line.)
(Version 1.1) | |
| Apr 27 2009 |
LOKHEED No, you are flat out wrong. PMSET does more than "fiddling" with System Preferences. I am running a LaCie drive and a WD drive. Both don't spindown with the settings I have in PMSET. Regardless of the drive's onboard capabilities, PMSET will always supersede those instructions. Google "western digital pmset" and you'll see more users that use it successfully.
(Version 1.1) | |
| Apr 28 2009 |
CTKMND On an external Western Digital Elements connected to an Late 2008 Unibody MacBook Pro 'pmset' doesn't work - the drive spins down regardless. So using something like this is essential. Just because it works for you, doesn't guarantee it will work for everyone else though most times it may. Oh, and btw. Checking the box in "energy settings" prefs panel sets the spindown time to 180 a.k.a. 3 hours. So, no it doesn't in truth "turn it off" but most people/computers will have some disk activity in that timeframe anyway so it's seldom discovered. | |
| Apr 27 2009 |
ANONYMOUS Well, No Spin offers multiple drive support, so that you can pick and choose which drives to affect and not to affect. Also, for anybody without "Developer" experience, how do they edit the "Launch Agent"... just in case every minute is not good enough? I certainly wouldn't want to keep all my drives spinning all the time... just simply the one that I use for recording audio and video, or one that is freezing my "Finder" by spinning down too often. I also, may want to un-install this "Agent"... and how do I do that? Without "Developer" experience, I mean. No Spin was originally a Launch Daemon, but was converted to provide the users with an interface. Ask a user to go inside their "System" folder and start making changes and see how many of them will still want the software. Be Wary... a runaway "Agent" or "Daemon" will bring your system to it's knees, especially something that runs every minute and the user has no way of "quitting" (quitting by conventional means, of course... without the proper "know-how", how does a "lamens" quit this Agent). I would be interested in seeing what the Console Log looks like after an hour of running this Agent. Offering it up for free, huh. Well, I hope it is worth your time if people start calling for "Support" and you spend your free time on the phone "not getting paid".
(Version 1.0) | |
| [ 4 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Apr 27 2009 |
BLACKSMITH_TB Odd that an anonymous poster would know the product history of the non-free competitor, No Spin. While it's theoretically possible they're a user who has installed multiple versions, I'd say it seems much more likely they're associated with No Spin's author(s), making this hardly an impartial review.
(Version 1.0) | |
| Apr 27 2009 |
ANONYMOUS Obviously not impartial But not exactly partial either... I have download and installed hundreds of apps that claim to do this and none seemed to do the trick. Also, look back in the history of No Spin and see that it was developed as a Launch Agent. Problem being... if the affected drive is not mounted or has been renamed, the Agent or Daemon will constantly error and repeat, eating up your processor. Not to mention that your System log will look like a mess, filled up with countless erros. For me, It is a no-brainer. That is why "No Spin" was converted to an actual "app". If there is an error, it skips it... if you want to quit the process, just choose "quit"... if you want to add/remove new volumes to the list, no need for installing another "agent", just add it to the list... ya see?
(Version 1.1) | |
| Apr 27 2009 |
SESQUIPEDALIAN Each drive is handled individually, and you can keep awake as many or as few as you like, in whatever combination you like. Uninstalling the launch agent is as simple as going to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and deleting net.jonstovell.keepSpinning.plist, where is the name of the drive. Each drive will have its own plist file. But in 1.1, I've adding a button to do it for the user. The launch agent won't "run away." The command it runs only does anything if it finds the hidden file on the drive. If the drive isn't present or the file is deleted, it exits silently and nothing is written to the console logs.
(Version 1.1) | |
| Apr 27 2009 |
SESQUIPEDALIAN Note: The second paragraph in my comment above was supposed to read: Uninstalling the launch agent is as simple as going to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and deleting net.jonstovell.keepDriveNameSpinning.plist, where DriveName is the name of the drive. Each drive will have its own plist file. But in 1.1, I've adding a button to do it for the user.
(Version 1.1) | |
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