Question Seagate Mac utility to reduce spin up/down intervals

[rugupiruvu]

Seagate 18TB HardDrive Exos X18 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 3.5" Manufacturer Recertified Enterprise HDD (ST18000NM000J) × 1 purchased from serverpartdeals.com

Guys - my external 18TB HDD connected to my Mac mini usb port keeps making noises when I try to access it. It seems normal but there is some sort of latency when viewing files initially in Finder for the first few second. Once I keep browsing files within it, that works but then if I exit out go back to Finder, same issue exists for the first 1-2 seconds. Even saving a small file takes about 1-2 seconds vs instant if it's saved to the Mac mini SSD. Obviously spinning HDD is slower than SSD but didn't think it's that much slower for small files like this

Link to hear recording - http://sndup.net/qrdt

What MAC utility can I use from Seagate to reduce resting state so it doesn't park the heads that often? I pay higher power of about 40c/KwH in my area so I won't get too aggressive but maybe a 30 mins idle interval before it parks its heads so it responds quicker. Waiting 1-2 seconds to access my files or save files is affecting my productivity. I can't really use SSD because I have over 15TB of data

Thanks

 

[kerberos_20]

head parking is APM (advanced power management), that can be changed, when set to performance, it wont park head, but im not familiar with mac apps, on windows you could use crystal disk info
hdparm might work on mac, set APM value to 255, if drive doesnt supports it then 254

 

[rugupiruvu]

Thanks for the advice. Btw, did you review the sound file and does it sound normal or something is off? This is a refurbished HDD

Thanks

 

[kerberos_20]

Btw, did you review the sound file and does it sound normal or something is off?

ye i did, drive was not spinning, so it spinned up, intialised and then at end its ready for use, sounds normal

 

[MWink64]

The drive sounds perfectly normal.

There's a couple separate issues that come into play. One is the SATA-USB adapter you're using. Most modern ones have baked in power management features. Some of them are extremely aggressive. I'm not sure if there's a way to disable them or not. If this is the cause, the only option may be to get a bridge with less aggressive power management.

The other issue is the drive's own power management. The Seagate Exos X18 does not support conventional APM, so most utilities cannot adjust it. These drives use EPC (Extended Power Condition) instead. This can be adjusted using Seagate's SeaChest utilities (not to be confused with Seatools). I don't see a Mac version but it is available for at least Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD. The good news is that these settings can be saved and persist through power cycles. You could connect the drive to a Windows or Linux machine, adjust the settings using SeaChest_PowerControl and then move it back to your Mac. Here are the stages and default timers for the Exos X18:

Idle A (reduced electronics) - .1 seconds
Idle B (heads unloaded) - 120 seconds (2 minutes)
Idle C (reduced spindle speed) - 600 seconds (10 minutes)
Standby Z (full spindown) - 900 seconds (15 minutes)

I believe only Idle A and Idle B are enabled by default. There's also a feature called PowerBalance but I'm uncertain how it works. It can be disabled with the same utility.

Since it sounds like your drive spun down, I'm thinking the USB adapter is at least part of the problem. It's one of the reasons I hate those things.

BTW, in case anyone is wondering, the WD Ultrastars support both APM and EPC (but obviously not Seagate's PowerBalance). I haven't seen a utility from WD for adjusting it but Seagate's SeaChest_PowerControl can be used to adjust the settings on the WD Ultrastars. Interestingly, shucked (helium) WD Easystores/Elements also appear to have this feature but the utility is not able to adjust it (always throws an error).