StayAwake HD is a little helper app for Mac OS X and soon for Windows and Linux that keeps your hard drives from turning off.
» Download StayAwake HD version 1.0.0 or Get the source code
This is a one-day project that I created this app using TideSDK which is still in development but already stable enough for this kind of apps. StayAwake HD is completely open-source so you can modify it as much as you want as long as you don't sell this code and keep my branding in it. This is my first Mac App project, so if you have suggestions, ideas, or anything else, just leave them in the comments below this article.
So how does StayAwake HD work? The idea behind this app is fairly simple. Some external hard drives, like the WD MyBook, turn themselves off when they aren't used for a while. When you want to open the Finder or Explorer, the system will sometimes freeze until the hard drive has started again, which can take some time. StayAwake HD creates and modifies a file on these external hard drives so they won't turn off anymore. This resolves the issues mentioned above and some other problems.