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Baroque Bloke |
I have an older MacBook running Mojave, and a newer MacBook running Big Sur. And I have two identical LaCie 2 TB portable rotating disks for Time Machine backups – one for the older MacBook, one for the newer. USB-C Mac-disk connection. Mojave machine backup: Disk activity ceases a few seconds after the backup completes. When I eject the disk (click its desktop icon then command-E) there’s a couple of seconds of disk activity, then that ceases too. Then I unplug the USB cable. Problematic Big Sur machine backup: Disk activity doesn’t cease when the backup completes, nor when I eject the disk. Of course activity ceases from lack of power when I unplug the USB cable. My concern: I suspect that the heads aren’t parked, leaving the disk more vulnerable to damage. My definition of disk activity: Audible noise, and the little LED light near the USB port is on, or flashing. Do you think that I’m correct in thinking that the disk heads aren’t getting parked after a Big Sur backup? Any suggestions for getting the Big Sur backup to terminate? Serious about crackers | ||
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| Left-Handed, NOT Left-Winged! |
Apple changed the format for Time Machine backups during the transition to Big Sur. I upgraded my iMac OS to Big Sur and didn't realize Time Machine wasn't working anymore. Then on the next update, my drive got corrupted and I got constant beachballs of death. When I tried to recover from Time Machine backup it was unreadable. I managed to create a new account on the iMac that worked and move over everything from the old account to the new account, and then got an external 2GB SSD to create a new system and transfer all my stuff. Seems the part of the internal drive on the iMac that was corrupted was the part where my account was mostly stored. So first thing to do is erase the old backup, reformat the drive, and create a new backup from scratch, then see how it works. If that doesn't change anything, then you might have a drive issue. Considering my iMac spinning drive and my Time Capsule spinning drive both failed a few months apart from each other, I am only using SSD's now. I have two 2GB external SSD's - one running the system, and the other a daily backup using Carbon Copy Cloner. I also have time Machine running in the old Time Capsule with a new 4GB SSD, which covers the iMac, a MacBook, and my son's iMac before he left for college. The possibility that I might have lost everything on my Mac - including my son's entire life in photos, I am now being even more careful. | |||
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Member |
The heads should park themselves when the drive looses power. You may want to consider leaving it connected for awhile. Time Machine may be trying to do some housekeeping that you are preventing by dismounting the drive. Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus | |||
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| Baroque Bloke |
Thanks Lefty Sig, but I have good evidence that Time Machine backups of my Big Sur MacBook are perfectly good. My only concern is that the disk heads aren’t getting parked. Serious about crackers | |||
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| Baroque Bloke |
Serious about crackers | |||
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| Member |
Have you left it connected for a week and activity doesn’t cease? Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus | |||
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| Baroque Bloke |
No, only a few minutes – see my previous post. But disk activity ceases after only a few seconds on the Mojave box. Serious about crackers | |||
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Member |
Apple fan boy here but I was pretty pissed when I had the exact same issue as Lefty sig. Had to wipe and reformat my Apple time Machine. Collecting dust. | |||
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| A man's got to know his limitations  |
I am glad this thread came up. I have a very similar issue as Pipe Smoker. I have a iMac that I recently upgraded to Monterey. I use two separate external hard drives a WB 500GB and a Seagate 1TB and backup it up once a week. The WB shuts off when I eject it same as always but now the Seagate stays running even though the icon drops off the screen when I eject it. It will run on for various times then shut down. Never did that before. "But, as luck would have it, he stood up. He caught that chunk of lead." Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock "If there's one thing this last week has taught me, it's better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it." Clarence Worley | |||
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goodheart |
I no longer trust external hard drives for secure backup. I use them--I use Carbon Copy Cloner--but also have online backup with Backblaze and of course iCloud. I no longer use Time Machine. _________________________ “Remember, remember the fifth of November!" | |||
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| Member |
My idea would be to leave it connected and mounted for a week. Give it time for Big Sur to make any changes it wants. Then see if is still misbehaving after that. It could be trying to make some structural changes that you aren’t giving it time to complete. Perhaps Big Sur has some validating it’s trying to do. IDK, but it’s worth giving it time and seeing. Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus | |||
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member |
Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC), a paid app, is a far superior backup solution when compared to Time Machine, well worth the cost. The developer is very active in keeping up with all the latest macOS features and updating the app to accommodate them. When in doubt, mumble | |||
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Don't Panic |
Hard drives park when they lose power. They do this on their own, no matter what the OS or file system is doing. The interruption may well cause other issues (to the file system, ongoing transactions, software setup/install, whatever else might have been going on) but one thing you don't need to worry about when a drive is turned off is the heads getting parked. Here's how it's done: linky link
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Member |
I have a LaCie 2 TB also. Over the years (20) I have had at least two LaCies crash. I now have a second one to back up the first. Don't. drink & drive, don't even putt. | |||
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| Left-Handed, NOT Left-Winged! |
I use both. The nice thing about Time Machine is the journaled backups that allow you to go back in time and find something and bring it back to the present. Plus it's useful for my MacBook that I only use for basic stuff when I don't want to sit in front of the iMac or I'm traveling. I don't store anything important on it, but it's easier to restore from a backup than to rebuild the entire thing if something gets hosed in a system update. CCC is now mandatory and is sort of my "poor" RAID array. With the clone drive being bootable, if I ever have another "oh shit" with the main drive, simply reboot from the cloned drive and I'm back in business, with a loss of less than 24 hours of changes. | |||
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| member |
If you enable CCC's Safety Net for your backups, any file changes are journaled. When in doubt, mumble | |||
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| Baroque Bloke |
Thanks for finding and reporting that Joel. You have good google-fu! I was indeed worried that the heads of the LaCie disk that I use to backup my Big Sur MacBook weren’t getting parked. I still wonder why disk activity ceases after the backup completes on my Mojave MacBook, but never ceases on my Big Sur MacBook. I guess that the answer is that Tim Cook had more time to screw up Big Sur. Serious about crackers | |||
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| Left-Handed, NOT Left-Winged! |
Can't remember if I activated that or not. If I didn't there was a good reason. But I like having the backup clone drive, AND a separate Time Machine backup. Belt and Suspenders, sort of. | |||
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| Don't Panic |
My experience is that incessant disk activity is often caused either by applications in the background - for example, a shared item (music folder, e.g.) being located on that drive and being accessed - or by the operating system doing 'virtual memory' operations to that particular disk, using fixed storage to extend the built-in RAM. Haven't used Macs in decades, so I can't tell you how to check for background operations on them or how to tell whether/how the Mac OS is paging memory to disk, but those two are what I'd suggest you research and check.This message has been edited. Last edited by: joel9507, | |||
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