GoFlex, GoFlex Desk, GoFlex Pro, GoFlex Slim, & GoFlex Turbo

[dlstyley]

I recently purchased this drive to be a backup device for a new iMac, running OSX Lion 10.7.3.  I formatted the drive for HFS+ and can successfully connect to the drive and set it up as the backup device for Time Machine.  Time Machine has been successfully backing up to this device.  I also installed Seagate Drive Settings app (which apparently installs some Mac specific drivers as well?)  I did this because of the problems I was having, but it did not solve the problem.  

The problem is that I frequently find these two error messages on the machine after it has been left alone for some period of time.  They seem to be related to when the Mac sleeps, and I thought the the disk was getting ejected after it powered down, however  tonight I noticed the following sequence:

1)  Mac AND drive were sleeping (no lights)

2)  woke Mac

3)  drive woke up (lights came on) automatically

4)  drive was visible (icon on the desktop) and accessible (I could view files on it)

5)  very soon (<1 min) drive went to sleep (lights went out)

6)  the attached error message popped up

7)  drive icon disappeared and drive was inaccessible

8)  drive woke up (lights came on) 

9)  drive being visible and accessible (after a few minutes)

This is the first time I've noticed that the drive woke up with the mac, but then went to sleep.  I'll try to pay closer attention and see if that is the norm.

While there are other threads about similar sleep issues, many of them get cluttered up with posts about unrelated problems with the drive.  I'd like to keep this one focused on the issue of Macs reporting this drive as being ejected improperly.  Anyone else seeing this error, and if so, have you noticed the sequence of events above, or are you seeing something different? 

I have a support incident opened with Seagate.  So far we are at the "have you tried X, Y, Z" phase, all of which is documented on their website and are things I have tried.  Yesterday they suggested turning off the sleep functions, but that's really not an acceptable option.  The drive appears to support having it's power controlled by the computer, it just seems to have some bugs.  It's possible that it's the Mac, but at this point I doubt it, as I have other macs with other external drives and they work fine.  

[dlstyley]

DOH!  After typing all that out, I realized I'm in the wrong forum.  Can the mods move this to the GoFlex area of the forums?

[Cantbecanit]

Thats normally the cable dropping out and then re-connecting does that.

[dlstyley]

No.  This problem happens every time I find the computer in a sleep state, and there isn't anything going on behind the computer to disturb the cables.  The forums are littered with people having problems with these drives on macs with sleeping (power management).  

[jeff92677]

Drive Disappearing, disconnecting.

Here's what I've found on these drives (I have several)

Turn OFF the power management feature that turns off the driver after X-minutes of non-use.

To me, it simply asks for timing issue problems, with an external device deciding when to turn on and off.

I use these drives on both Windows and Apple OS and on the Apple, I use "Tuxera NTFS" to be able to write files in NTFS format.

On my network drives (GoFlexNet) they handle all the drive formats because they support all of the formats.

They're running a small linux type server OS on the network that stores files in the format of the drive connected to the Seagate networking box. I use GoFlexNet. If I format a drive on my mac, extended journaled, etc., and plug into the goflexnet box (or hook to it with a USB cable) it just works, and retains the Mac format, but is visible to my WIndows machines.

Same with NTFS formatted drives, they appear just fine to the mac (across the network) even though when I connect one to the Mac directly, I need to use Tuxera NTFS to retain the "write" capability.

But on your ejecting issue - turn off the power management - so it never goes to sleep and see if that fixes the unreliable nature of the connection.

Jeff

PS: Using the Finder, I can see my GoFlexNet drives based on part of their MAC address. I can also see them using PoGoPlug as drives with names I've given them (drive labels) but the finder just sees the Seagate Box and when I click on one, I then see what drives are attached/plugged into it.

All very clever and useful stuff for backup. And I do all my backups manually. I am not a fan of automatic backups personally.