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in 2008, I bought a Western Digital MyBook Studio 1TB with triple interfaces – USB 2.0, FireWire 800, and eSATA. Along with this I bought a Dynex eSATA ExpressCard for my MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, eSATA was not nice to me: specifically, the combination of the triple hard drive interface (rumored it is an Oxford chipset), and the eSATA card’s underlying firmware, Silicon Image SI3132. At the time I experienced issues with Time Machine, and the drive would not come out of sleep mode when connect via eSATA. I conceded and used the drive with FireWire 800.

Flash forward to last Wenesday. I found the poor Dynex eSata card under a pile of papers on my desk, and wondered if anything changed in the past year. I researched some links I used previously (namely, the Leopard and Silicon Image 3132 discussion, see below) and found some new ones. I took several steps in tandem (the shotgun approach) but now the drive appears to work correctly with eSATA. I’ve had no issues with Time Machine, or the drive freezing or disconnecting. The issue is resolved!

What did I do?

1. I installed the latest Silicon Image 3132 drivers for OS X Leopard: SATARAID5, version 1.5.16.0. By itself, it did not fix the problem. It appears Silicon Image focused on providing the SATARAID drivers, as most people in the discussions have had the best luck with it, and there is no harm in using the drivers with non-RAID cards. (Although, most two-port eSATA cards support software RAID). Link to Silicon Image drivers for OS X Leopard: http://siliconimage.com/support/searchresults.aspx?pid=32&cat=3&os=3
2. I turned off OS X’s hard drive sleep mode. There are two places to turn it off. The first is in System Preferences, Energy Saver, Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible. (You may need to click the Show Details button to see this option.) The second is a developer tool, found in /Developer/Applications/Performance Tools/CHUD/Hardware Tools/SpindownHD. It allows for global enabling and disabling of hard drive sleep modes. The web page where I found this hint suggested that OS X only sends those commands to drives connected via FireWire or USB. Link to MacNoob page: http://www.macnoob.net/blog/2008/05/the-sleepy-western-digital-mybook-saga/
3. Finally, I upgraded the firmware on the Western Digital MyBook Studio. The web page had a lot of perquisites, including uninstalling the Western Digital Drive Manager (which I use to manage the RAID on the MyBook Pro drive), temporarily disabling Time Machine, and connecting the drive via USB. (The firmware update only works via USB.) Once the prereq’s were done, the update itself went smoothly. Link to Western Digital firmware update: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=113&sid=60&lang=en
4. There is no step four! I powered down the drive and connected it via eSATA, and everything has worked like kittens. I’m on day three and have run the gamut of sleep mode, inactivity, Time Machine, on-demand access, and everything has just worked!

Now that my eSATA issues are sorted out, I’m thinking about moving to a Mac Mini… but that’s another story for later.

Resources:

• OS X Leopard and Silicon Image 3132 discussion: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=378576
• Silicon Image drivers for OS X Leopard: http://siliconimage.com/support/searchresults.aspx?pid=32&cat=3&os=3
• eSATA on MacNoob blog: http://www.macnoob.net/blog/2008/05/the-sleepy-western-digital-mybook-saga/
• Western Digital firmware update: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=113&sid=60&lang=en
• Removing the Western Digital Button Manager/Drive Manager: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=392081
• Another link on removing the Button Manager: http://www.theosquest.com/2007/07/16/wd-my-book-button-manager-removed-and-some-frustrations/
• I found Drive Manager on my Mac in /Library/Application Support/WesternDigital/WDDriveManager. Drag to the desktop to uninstall (may require your administrative password).