Big Sur Disconnecting My External HDD

Hi

I have two MacBooks pro both running Big Sur, one with old intel chip and the one with new m1 chip. Interestingly, I have no problem with MacBook pro with intel chip. Now, with the new MacBook pro m1 chip I had this problem of external hdd disconnecting (LaCie 5TB) while I was on battery mode. Off course, there is no option of preventing harddisks from sleeping while on battery mode. To try to solve this problem I did two things, connected my Macbook with power adapter and I restarted my Macbook. Only then, I could use my external hardisk with no disconnecting issues.

History: The G-Drive Mobile TB3 SSD has been connected to my 2018 Mac mini since I bought it in June 2019. The drive worked great with Catalina. I upgraded to Big Sur in November of 2020. The drive started randomly disconnecting.

The drive was still under warranty, so I contacted support, they sent me a refurbished drive with a bad TB3 connection (port). I had to hold it a specific angle to get it to connect, and it also randomly disconnected while I was holding it. They sent a second refurbished unit. The behavior was the same. They sent me a third drive, but this one was brand new still in the sealed packaging. Same behavior...

I contacted Apple. They had me do the normal things that I had done multiple times, reset NVRAM, SMC, PRAM, enery saving settings, etc... No change.

Next they had me boot into safe mode and connect the drive. It connected and stayed connected. I rebooted into normal and it stayed connected. The tech stayed on the phone with me for about another 20 minutes. 30 miniutes after the call ended, it started to randomly disconnect again. It started to do it every few minutes, then it started about every 15-30 seconds...

Mac mini has 4 TB3 ports, 2 ports per BUS. I have an eGPU (Radeon Vega 64) connected to 1 TB3 port (it made it through the upgrade to Big Sur)

Caldigit TB3 Plus connect to the 3rd port (second BUS). It has multiple External connections (USB 3.0 type A drive bay with 4-6TB drives, USB-C Sandisk 500GB SSD, USB-C Sandisk 1TB SSD, all made it through the upgrade).

I've plugged the Sandisk USB-C 1TB SSD into each TB3 BUS, it works perfectly.

I've done the same with the G-Drive, but it behaves the same no matter what port it's connected to, that includes the TB3 port on the TB3 dock.

Appearently the Big Sur upgrade altered the TB3 configuration on the Macmini to the point this particular G-Drive Mobile SSD will NOT stay connected.

The G-Drive Mobile SSD is the only piece of my hardware that didn't survive the Big Sur upgrade. I would roll back to Catalina, but Big Sur allows me to boot straight to my eGPU. In Catalina, I had to boot to the local GPU, and switch to the eGPU after boot up.

Note: The G-Drive utility is not compatible with this version of macOS...

I'm going to contact Apple again.

Interesting!! I'm having the VERY same trouble except mine is with the iMac that I purchased in January 2021. I have two external drives connected to it, one for Time Machine backups and the other for my Lightroom editing program. Every morning they're disconnected - but not ejected. Then when I try to eject them, I get a force eject message. That's the only way to get them to connect again. But what I'm really ****** about is that I've spoken with 3 levels of Apple tech support, the latest being "senior level" and none of them have acted like they know of any sort of issue like mine! They must not look at their forum questions, right? So my Time Machine HD started grinding, yesterday, (bought it Feb 1,2021) and so I worried it was crashing. I decided to return it to Best Buy. While there, I talked to a geek with Geek Squad. I tell him my issues with my iMac disconnecting from my External drives. He's not surprised at all. He said, "Oh yeah. They're having a problem with Big Sur and external HD's. We just got another notice about it this morning." Really Apple??? Even when I asked if Big Sur might have a bug, they all played dumb! The senior level Apple tech, Brian, even made a copy of my whole computer to send to engineers to look at. Never once have they admitted it could be a Big Sur problem. Why is that? My guess, because they don't know how to fix the problem so they don't want to admit there is a problem. This is what I call a coverup! Meanwhile, what do we do? Maybe we need to buy an HP.

I'm on senior level tech support right now. I've been on support for the past week, off and on, because of this very problem. One of my external hard drives, a new one, has already had to be replaced because it started grinding. I just bought my iMac in January. It came with Big Sur. So far, no tech support person, for Apple, acted like they knew there was a problem with Big Sur causing disconnects with external hard drives. Yet, your post is like many others on here saying that there's a problem. Who is looking at these concerns? I returned the new external hard drive to Best Buy and had a discussion with a Geek Squad guy, while there. He knew about it! He told me that there's a problem with Big Sur and external drives. Really? Geek Squad is aware but not the APPLE support people? Clearly, the issue is not being resolved and apple support isn't being allowed to acknowledge that they know it's a problem. It smells like a cover up until they figure it out. So, don't expect answers anytime soon from tech support. We are stuck.

Is not helping. I tried several times.

I want to back up to Catalina now, but I am scared, if the ports are not working well, I will start reinstalling from Time Machine on HDD, perhaps it could lead to a complete breakdown.

So, I'm stumped.

My issue is just a TB3 SSD which has been connected to my Mac mini since day 1. All of my other external drives (USB-3.1, USB 3.0, etc...) work just fine.

This started when I upgraded to Big Sur back in November. I've been searching for a fix since. I'm thinking it's all about the driver at this point, but Apple is the cause, no doubt about it. Big Sur made changes to the TB3 configuration, and this is the result. All of my external drives worked perfectly (or close to it) in Catalina.

My Mac mini is covered by applecare+, so my case is getting pushed to the engineering team (regular support was unable to help after a few hours on the phone). I'm collecting the logs they asked for. When/if anything comes of it, I will share.

On the other end, my G-Drive Mobile pro TB3 ssd is still under warranty, so they are looking at it from the their end.

I am not able to load the G-Drive Mobile firmware updater. I get that "will not work on this macOS version" error.

Thank you so much for this my WD external drives have been driving me crazy, I'm using an Imac with Big Sur and tried this yesterday and so far they are all fine and showing all files and the icons are all working and not disconnecting.

I've had problems when backing up to an external drive in the past and I always run caffeinate to stop my MacBook going to sleep whilst running a backup (rsync).

I found opening the Terminal and running caffeinate solved my problem. Not an ideal solution I know. Maybe it'll work in this case.

My disconnects began at BS 11.1 and I am now on 11.2.1(Mac Mini 2018) with more frequent disconnects than 11.1. The 12 TB G-Speed Studio R RAID 5 remains powered and does not reconnect itself.

I changed the power-saving settings and will be testing 24/7 for a week. I will report results on this forum/topic.

Following up on my post a week of testing the impact of changing Power Saving settings suggested by Washeki. Both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop were mounted along with several other programs like Outlook, iStatistica Pro, Chrome etc. There was just one disconnect in 7 days when before there would be 4 or 5 per day, with computer running 24 hours.

Solved for me: I've had the same problem with a WD USB 3.0 drive on my wife's iMac for Time Machine backups (use multiple disks; this the only one that continuously dropped when the Mac woke up), thought it might be the USB hub, tried one with more power ... same thing, then, since I am using a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, was now able to plug directly into iMac... same thing. The problem drive was purchased already formatted for the Mac; noticed a post that there could be some software from WD that was causing it to hibernate and causing the problem ... reformatted the drive Mac OS Extended ... problem gone!

My brand new 27” IMac was consistently disconnecting both of my WD Ext HD’s. With the help of Apple’s engineers, it has finally been resolved. I thought it had something to do with Big Sur. Turns out it was my Trend Anti-virus. I had to remove all traces of Trend AV on my computer. It worked.

Mine, after help from Apple's engineers, was my Trend Anti-Virus program. I had to remove ALL traces of it before the disconnects stopped. Senior level support guided me through the steps and search for all folders related to Trend. They were in remote places that only a senior tech person could have helped me find. Once they were gone, no more disconnects. I was expecting it to be Big Sur related. Guess it wasn't.

Do you use Trend Anti-virus, by some chance? After working with Apple's senior level support and having engineers go through my computer data, it came down to the Trend program. I had to remove all traces of Trend, with the help of support, and then the disconnects stopped. If you keep having the issue, I would suggest you reach out to Apple's senior level support, and ask them to send your computer data files to their engineers. If you have Trend, get their support services to help you remove ALL files and folders associated with Trend. Trust me, they're hidden in all sorts of places that you might not be able to find on your own.

Glad to hear both of you got it all worked out.

My case is still with engineering. I haven't heard anything from them. I've checked status online a couple of times, but couldn't find anything relating to it online today (perhaps it's some kind of glitch).

I've never had Trend AV on my Mac. I use Malwarebytes, which by the way, the support tech used to check the file system.

Since my initial post, I've replaced my USB 3.0 drivebay with a TB3 drivebay (Thunderbay 4 from OWC-raid capable). All bays are filled and it works perfectly.

The G-Drive Mobile pro tech told me this model of TB3 ssd was tested on Big Sur with no issues...

I plugged the SSD into the Thunderbay 4 TB3 in/chain port, and it worked for a couple days. Then it started the arbitrary disconnects again.

I am curious as to why it worked for a couple of days after I plugged it into the Thunderbay 4...

I am also curious why all of my other TB3 peripherals work fine (Thunderbay 4, Caldigit TB3 dock and everything connected to it, and a TB3 eGPU with Radeon Vega 64). No drivers required for any of them.

This all started when I upgraded to Big Sur, but with all that's happened since, I'm not sure if Big Sur is the issue. I am sure, that whatever it is, was initiated by the upgrade.

This G-Drive Mobile Pro 1TB TB3 SSD has been replaced 3 times (the current drive was brand new when it arrived still in the retail packaging). Behavior was the same for all 3 drives.

Apple support started out being responsive up until the last month or so... I need to find out why they fell off.

As much as I hate to, I'm starting to consider rebuilding the Mac. I can't use time machine backups, so it would be from scratch. What a pain...

Does anyone know if there is a way to restore only applications to a new build?