Need Help with Hard drives and My M2 MacBook Pro

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BLev65

BLev65

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This is a repost from one I made on Fred Miranda's site, but I did not get the help I need... Please read, and advise...

You know when you think you are making the right decision upgrading your computer and then... FUBAR!
About 3 months ago I was excited to purchase the Newest MacBook Pro 13.3 M2 w/ 16GB RAM and 256GB HD
This computer replaces a 2018 i5 quad core MacMini w/ 32GB ram and 256GB SSD

The problem... My hard drives spin down all of the time while I am working. This occurs even when I'm in LR Classic culling or editing photos. As a result, the editing slows every time the drives spin up.
My system is as follows...
1: My LR catalogs are on a Sandisk 2TB Extreme Portable connected directly to the computer (note, catalogs are too big to be stored on the internal drive).
2: My working drive is a Seagate Expansion 6TB HDD (traditional drive) connected to the Mac via a Sonnet Echo 5 Thunderbolt 4 powered dock.
3: I back-up to a Lacie 2Big 8TB USB-C RAID. This is attached to the Sonnet Echo 5 TB 4 dock too.
4. Monitor is a Mac Studio (non retina) also via the Sonnet Echo 5 TB 4 dock.

Software... LR classic, PS, OnOne Effects, Topaz (big 3), Luminar. All are fast when the storage drive is running, all stall out with the storage drive spins down.
Important Point... My catalog is set to import both Smart Files and 1:1... as such, I do not know why the drives are impacting my workflow.
Finally, my Energy Saver / Battery settings are set to keep drives running even when the computer sleeps. All drives have their own power supply.

At this point, I am up for anything but replacing the computer.
I need 8 TB of storage (room to grow), and I want my workflow to be seamless. If I need Thunderbolt drives, then please make a suggestion. On the other hand, if there is a setting on the Mac that I need to change, please let me know.

regards,
bruce
 
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I am waiting to see if Apple upgrade the 27" iMac to the M series processor before I update my system so I am still using my late 2020 top-end 27" i9 iMac with 1 TB on-board SSD and 72 GB of ram. My work is handled as follows:
OWC quad bay Thunderbolt 3 external drive housing with (4) x WD hard drives: (2) by 12 TB mirrored for storage/backup; (1) x 12 TB Time Machine drive; and (1) x 4 TB "swap" drive used for temporarily parking data files when doing file cleanup, etc.​
OWC Thunderbolt 3 housing with 8 TB high speed SSD's.​
OWC Thunderbolt 3 housing with 2 TB high speed SSD.​

All the SSD drives are formatted APFS and the mechanical drives are all formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

All the apps reside on the on-board SSD.

I load all my photo files directly to the 8 TB SSD for processing. Minor editing is handled with the files on this 8 TB SSD.

All processor-intensive photo editing is done on the iMac on-board SSD which provides the best possible processing speed and efficiency.

The 2 TB SSD is used for a handy temporary parking of work-in-progress and fast file swapping or duplication when I don't want those files to clutter the iMac on-board SSD.

Since late 2018 I have satisfactorily been using Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD's for handling photo file storage and back-up when I travel (each batch of photos transferred independently to each of two SEP SSD's so that I have separately stored duplicates of each file - i.e.: I never transfer to one SSD and then copy from that to the second SSD).

I have not yet tried the Sandisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD's so cannot comment on the feasibility of using one for file processing.

I have found mechanical hard drives frustratingly slow for photo processing and I do not use the SEP SSD's for file processing due to the relatively slow interface speed.

Of course, YMMV!
 
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Found this on another site, same question you had. No idea if it will work for you:

Mac/Library/preferences/

anything that looks like com.apple.PowerManagement.plist (I have two files, the second including a string of numbers)

They will be recreated after reboot, and then you need to adjust your energy saver/spin down preferences again.

In my instance it seemed to be a corruption of the plist following a point update of the OS.
Click to expand...
 
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Palmor said:
Found this on another site, same question you had. No idea if it will work for you:
Click to expand...
Wow... I've been looking for someone else with my problem, and I have not found many. Thanks... I'll look for the file and see if deleting it helps.
thanks,
bruce
 
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BrianMM said:
I am waiting to see if Apple upgrade the 27" iMac to the M series processor before I update my system so I am still using my late 2020 top-end 27" i9 iMac with 1 TB on-board SSD and 72 GB of ram. My work is handled as follows:
OWC quad bay Thunderbolt 3 external drive housing with (4) x WD hard drives: (2) by 12 TB mirrored for storage/backup; (1) x 12 TB Time Machine drive; and (1) x 4 TB "swap" drive used for temporarily parking data files when doing file cleanup, etc.​
OWC Thunderbolt 3 housing with 8 TB high speed SSD's.​
OWC Thunderbolt 3 housing with 2 TB high speed SSD.​

All the SSD drives are formatted APFS and the mechanical drives are all formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

All the apps reside on the on-board SSD.

I load all my photo files directly to the 8 TB SSD for processing. Minor editing is handled with the files on this 8 TB SSD.

All processor-intensive photo editing is done on the iMac on-board SSD which provides the best possible processing speed and efficiency.

The 2 TB SSD is used for a handy temporary parking of work-in-progress and fast file swapping or duplication when I don't want those files to clutter the iMac on-board SSD.

Since late 2018 I have satisfactorily been using Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD's for handling photo file storage and back-up when I travel (each batch of photos transferred independently to each of two SEP SSD's so that I have separately stored duplicates of each file - i.e.: I never transfer to one SSD and then copy from that to the second SSD).

I have not yet tried the Sandisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD's so cannot comment on the feasibility of using one for file processing.

I have found mechanical hard drives frustratingly slow for photo processing and I do not use the SEP SSD's for file processing due to the relatively slow interface speed.

Of course, YMMV!
Click to expand...
Your system is way more sophisticated than mine, and reflects a financial investment beyond what I need. Those OWC drives have a crazy high list price. I would love 8TB of SSD across 2 or 4 bays, but the thunderbolt version of these drives are too more than I want to spend.
thanks for the detailed info...

bruce
 
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BrianMM said:
Bruce,

Is your software loaded on the MacBook Pro SSD or on your working drive?
Click to expand...
LR Classic, PS, Topaz, OnOne all on International 256GB SSD
LR Catalogs (multiple for different categories of work) on Sandisk 2TB Extreme Portable
RAW Files are mirrored on Lacie 2Big and Seagate Expansion (the latter is a backup disk). I only run the Expansion to backup the Lacie. I have tried reversing the roles of the Expansion and the 2Big, but the 2Big comes to life faster than the Seagate drive. Both drives will sleep while I am working directly in a catalog... super annoying. I cold be making adjustment in LR, the drive sleeps and the whole system stalls until the drive wakes up.

bruce
 
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Item #3 in this article may be of assistance : resolve-mac-external-hard-drive-sleep-problem

One or two of the other items may also provide a solution.

In addition, if all the photo processing is limited to the application software on the internal SSD working with the LR Catalogs on the Sandisk SSD then it is possible the external hard drive setup and/or the mirroring app that handles file transfer to the LaVCie and Seagate drives may be part of the problem.

Is the RAW file mirroring software trying to automatically copy the file changes while you are implementing them?
 
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