External SSD Disconnects Repeatedly Mac Mini M1 (Big Sur)

Yes, same issue. I have my 2big LaCie Thurnderbolt 3 drive disconnecting randomly. Mostly during power management periods (screen off), but sometimes the drive just goes off. Trips my Lightroom Classic session and crashes the library. Not nice. The LaCie drive is new and worked fine all the time on the previous iMac.

It's clearly a problem, but no one seems to be doing anything about it.

Am I just paranoid, or is this a way for them to force people to buy their expensive onboard memory?

Does anyone have a similar problem if they are using a docking station?

I have spoken to Apple Helpdesk about 15 times about this problem and were even assigned an engineer (or so they told).

Their engineer said that they had no other reports of this kind of failure, which means it is really uncommon.

@valerio49

Video editing is exactly why I bought the M1 Macbook Air.

I've been a PC person my whole life and dipped my toe into the water due to the performance results people were seeing.

The performance has been great - but the inability to plus in SSDs is a real problem as I have a ton of SSDs and so didn't buy a huge amount of Apple's expensive internal storage.

For smaller projects I can manage, but larger projects I have to go back to my trusty old PC.

This is the worst connectivity problem I've seen on a real Mac in many years. Very unusual to me. I've installed and used many different external drives with Macs and have never seen anything quite like this happen before unless a driver wasn't updated or something like that. Hopefully this gets fixed soon because it doesn't happen on the intel Macs I use with the exact same drives.

I can't believe that this is still going on, after a year!

I have a ThunderBay 4 that behaved perfectly for 2 years with my Mac mini Intel.

I just replaced it with a new Mac mini M1, and now I experience two variations:

• the common “not properly ejected” warnings
• the drives going to sleep even though the Energy Save box is unchecked for “put hard disks to sleep”.

The cable is an OWC T4 cable. The macOS is the latest Big Sur.

There are a thousand postings about this — from Reddit to StackExchange to Apple Support — but I see no answers.

Could it be that Apple has been ejected? Put to sleep?

"later Macs" -- specifically? When did Sleep stop being helpful, at which model?

I'm seeing from this article that M1s don't do Power nap: https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/47473-tech-tip-should-you-shut-down-your-mac-or-let-it-sleep/

Same here 😂 I hope Apple will adress this issue soon sonehow…

I got the new M1Max Macbook and tried to connect an external Sandisk Extreme 2TB SSD to it. It freezes, disconnects and/or needs 8hrs for 100Gb to copy…

Is it a problem with my computer? Should I send it back? But seems like its an issue that will not change with a different machine? Can I somehow diagnose if the hardware is working correctly?

I also bought a few new cables (Apple and non Apple) to see if that does any trick…

jerboalegs wrote:

With only 4 ports, avoiding hubs is almost impossible for everyone but a basic home school user.

Hmm. I've been using my MacBook Pro for work since the pandemic. The only thing I ever have plugged into it is the power cable. Making assumptions as you did is the enemy of good troubleshooting.

@IdrisSeabright

Regardless, the ports need to work.

My machine, for example, can't be upgraded, so I did my research before buying re: internal vs. external speeds vs. $$. I bought the laptop configuration that I did plus an external SSD on the assumption that it would work as advertised. It does not do so reliably.

I'm very much over Apple slapping the word "Pro" on something and then not testing it or supporting it the way a pro tool – and a premium-priced one at that – should be.

Using a desktop Mac is somewhat different than using a MBA (I have both). With my Mini I have a dvd drive, TM and a CCC backup drive attached all the time. I also use another port for my monitor and one to do weekly backups on another drive so a hub is mandatory.

Thanks for this. I have got Satechi telling me that I can return the hub and they will send me another one. But I would like to find out what is going on. I have being using this ( well trying to use it) for my Dropbox files.

Can this be the issue since I believe that the Dropbox app is Rosetta? I quit the Dropbox app, but next morning I found a lot of disconnects anyway.

I am really confused. But I am replying this moment as I am painfully waiting for Dropbox to move all the files to a T5 Samsung. Connected directly to the other TB port, no disconnects so far.

Thank you very much to all. I am preparing myself to contact Apple support. Just a few quick questions as I am no geek:

1.- Is this limited to this OS on M1 Mac? I have another two Intel Macs running 24/7 and no problem whatsoever with them ever in Big Sur and now Monterey.

2.- Why is it this issue comes up on only one of my SSDs attached to the M1 Mac mini, and this through the Satechi hub? It does not happen to any of my 3 T5 Samsung 1TB I use constantly on this M1 Mac mini or the other two Intel Macs

3.- What is the mas efficient method of contacting Apple Support on this issue to get their attention?

I honestly haven't tried it out with the most recent Monterey update ( yesterday).

I ended up simply connecting the Satechi through my powered hub, and since I don't use the 2TB SSD much either, I can live with it. I also left feedback for Apple Support, but I simply gave up. Pity...

I should mention the cable linked above has abysmal read/write speed. My previous cable had a read/write of 130 Mbps; the new cable is only clocking in at 30 Mbps. Apparently, we can't have it all; you'll have to sacrifice speed for stability in this solution.