If you’re a Mac user, chances are you have an external hard drive for Time Machine backups or other media storage. However, you may have noticed that when the drive is left plugged into your Mac, it can cause annoying slow downs and beachballs.
This happens because the drive spins even when not in use, which wakes the disk from sleep and causes the Mac to slow down. Fortunately, there are two easy solutions to this problem:
Option 1: Stop the Hard Drive from Sleeping
To stop the hard drive from sleeping, go to System Preferences → Energy Saver and deselect “Put hard disks to sleep when possible.” This prevents the drive from waking up and causing beachballs, but it may shorten the life of traditional rotating hard drives, so use sparingly.
Option 2: Remove the Hard Drive When Not in Use
Another solution is to simply remove the external hard drive when it’s not in use. This prevents it from rotating randomly and causing slow downs, but it’s less convenient since you’ll have to manually install the drive when you want to use it. Time Machine backups also won’t occur when the drive is removed.
If you prefer this option, you can remove a hard drive either by dragging it to the Trash or using Disk Utility to eject the drive.
Keep in mind, neither of these solutions is perfect, and hopefully future updates to Mac OS X will address this issue. If you have any other solutions or thoughts, feel free to share them in the comments.
Benefits of This Guide
- This guide is free and easy to follow
- It helps prevent slow downs and beachballs when using an external hard drive
- It provides two simple solutions that you can implement today
Frequently Asked Questions
What is this guide about?
This guide is about how to prevent beachballs and slow downs in Mac OS when using an external hard drive.
How does this guide help?
This guide provides two easy solutions to prevent slow downs and beachballs when using an external hard drive on a Mac.
What devices does this guide support?
This guide is only for Apple devices.
What operating systems does this guide support?
This guide supports both Mac OS and iOS.
Final Note
If you have any questions or concerns about this guide, feel free to ask us in the comments or through our contact page. Please note that this guide is for educational purposes only, and if you see any misinformation, kindly let us know so we can correct it. If you have any alternate methods to share, please contact us as well. Thank you for reading!