Monterey struggling with External SSD

Got tired of waiting for new OS updates to see if it might FIX the disconnecting issue..

So did some digging and found that the enclosure I use has the Realtek RTL9210 chipset.

After some more googling I found firmware updates on Plugable dot com's website...

I don't have a plugable enclosure, but thought to just try it anyway.

Updated without any issues. Drive has been working perfectly ever-since.

I have a Orico M2PV-C3 enclosure

Holding thumbs it stays this way..

Hooray! The latest update to Monterey (12.3) has fixed my problem. Everything works normally again. Thanks Apple software engineers! Overall, my advice is to update the OS. Connect the external drive directly to the laptop using the cable that came with the drive. Other cables and hubs may not support the drive. (For the Samsung X5, I have to use a Thunderbird 3 cable plugged into a Thunderbird 3 port or it won't work.) If you can get the drive to mount, then make sure the driver and firmware are up to date.

I had an issue with my 3.1 USB-C and Monterey 12.2. I purchased a Thunderbolt 3 external SSD and it worked perfectly. I thought to try the Thunderbolt 3 cable that came with the new drive on the old USB SSD and it worked PERFECTLY. The USB-C cable didn't work on the M1 Max with the 3.1 SSD but the new Thunderbolt 3 cable plugged in to the old SSD on the M1 Max worked.

Based upon detail from another forum ( see link ), which although I'm unfamiliar, a post sheds light on Monterey & Spotlight indexing pertaining to Time Machine external drives. {I'm using a 2020 Intel iMac & now, macOS 12.2 & a 2TB SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD, that has been in continuous use since 2019}

When I attempted adding my external Time Machine drive, I received an error message... "xxx is a Time Machine backup folder. You can not add it to the privacy list." This corroborates what the forum's link points out... Monterey's Spotlight does not index network drives. (Although the guy in that forum wanted to index his Music Library on an external drive & figured out a Terminal procedure to do so.)

I've been using my SanDisk SSD for Time Machine without issue, until Monterey. As I previously did have my SanDisk SSD added to the Privacy window in pre-Monterey Spotlight, I deleted the SanDisk SSD as part of the process getting Time Machine functioning as it should (& as it did prior to Monterey).

Let me add a couple of recommends which might help others... a caveat to those using newer, M1 Macs.

1. My SanDisk SSD (and, Time Machine) was rendered unusable post, Monterey install. I found the best way to erase the SSD (essentially starting over) was by erasing the top-level disk, using Monterey's Disk Utility, and reset the SSD to Untitled, ExFAT, & Master Boot Record. [Note: I was very fortunate I had a good, Carbon Copy Clone on another SanDisk SSD - so, my loss of all prior, Time Machine backups was not a big problem as I could not get access to any of that backup Data.] ...Then, I erased the nested drive to Untitled, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), GUID Partition Map; and then, Converted the nested drive to... APFS. ...Once conversion was complete, I used Get Info to rename it as I wanted. ...I can say that with the completion of this process, I no longer experienced any issues mounting & dismounting (using Disk Utility) the SSD. When I re-selected the newly converted, SSD for Time Machine, it set up & completed the 1st backup quickly. Time Machine backups have since been running smoothly.

2. I have found macOS Disk Utility has been the more reliable way to dismount an external SSD, instead of using Finder. ...And as result, I use a created, Automator app that employs a Terminal command {to Disk Utility} for dismounting my Time Machine SSD. {The SSD gets too hot to leave continuously connected; a pain, but so it goes.} ...I keep this Automator app in my Dock for easy access to dismount the Time Machine SSD.

Having employed the above for the last 5 days (from this Post), I'm confident the external SSD, Time Machine drive will continue running well. ...When the next macOS update takes place, I will find out if the current, Time Machine set-up transitions & works with the newly updated, Monterey, or the Update causes problems {meaning, hasn't yet resolved the basic, Time Machine issue with external SSDs}. ...And, we'll have to again sort out Time Machine.

Update: I purchased a Thunderbolt 3 SSD which came with a thunderbolt 3 cable. It works perfectly on the MBP M1 Max and Monterey 12.2 which got me thinking... I tried the Samsung T5 SSD with the Thunderbolt 3 cable. It worked perfectly! Interesting, the mounted icon was different when using the Thunderbolt 3 cable. Using a USB-C 3.1 cable, I get a silver drive icon as per older Catalina. When using the 3.1 cable on the new MBP with Monterey 12.2 I get the silver icon and the drive doesn't work properly. When I use the Thunderbolt 3 cable on the Samsung T5 SSD, I get a gold drive icon and the drive works perfectly albeit slower which is expected. Maybe try a Thunderbolt 3 or better cable on your non-thunderbolt drives and see if they work better.

My Mac Pro (late 2013) OS X 12.3 is still having problems handling the 4TB external SSD (WD) in a Sabrent USB 3.0 enclosure. I have been using that drive and enclosure since Catalina with Mac OS Extended Journaled. After the update to Monterey, I had to reformat it. After many failures. I discovered I was only able to format the drive to APFS if I put it on my USB hub. I was also able to format it if I attach it through my Thunderbolt display. After it is formatted, if I move the drive to a USB port on the Mac, it quickly becomes unreachable and has to be reformatted again. As long as I keep the drive on the USB hub or Thunderbolt Display USB port, it appears to work. I guess I just need to live with that configuration until another update comes out and try again.

EDIT: It might be a bit too early to be 100% sure what the problem is but it might be Spotlight indexing.

Usually the light on my enclosure is constantly blinking when it's plugged into the Air. Since I turned off indexing for the drive, it isn't blinking anymore and it's been >10 minutes and the disk hasn't involuntarily ejected yet.

Maybe Monterey can't index the whole SSD because my Air doesn't have enough space on the 256gb internal drive (it's been between 10-20gb left) to index....

but so far not having problems since I turned off indexing (go into preferences > spotlight > privacy > add the external drive to prevent indexing)

Hey, hopefully you've solved you're issue by now, but I just had the same issue and the senior Apple Technician walked me through recovery start up - disk utility - Show all devices - first aid to hard drive - then mount. It mounted right up and I'm rolling right along! I just had to share after losing sleep over it! Please vote this as a solved answer so that it can help some folks! ;)

I had a problem where two disks were no longer recognized and were not visible as all in disk utility. after upgrading to monterey. When I put a usb c adapter on the older plug they both worked. I was driving them from a old usb dock. By putting a usb c adapter on the usb dock and conneting that to the usb c port on the computer still did not work. Next I hooked it to a usb c hub and connected the hub to the computer and VOILA! both drives are visible and accessible.

Mike

The issue is Monterey (on M1) with external SSDs partitioned to APFS. All my drives (regardless of brand) have terrible writing speeds on M1 Monterey with the APFS filesystem. Apple should address it and provide an update that fixes it. There's no other way.

Makeshift solution is to run your external drives on HFS+ to bring the write speeds to about 80-85% of the total ssd speed claimed by the manufacturers.

Hello everyone, I just finished downgrading to Big Sur after I almost lost all of my data stored on external hard drives :( Luckily I managed to recover the data but this is not part of this thread.

I have a Mac mini (2018), i7. After the upgrade to Monterey 12.3.1(from Big Sur 11.6.4) my external 4TB hard drives would start making problems until they did not mount at all any more (not even visible in disk utility when connected). After some research I found that I am not the only one with this issue. Long story short: DONT UPGRADE TO MONTEREY! Everything was working perfectly fine before the update. Apple needs to solve this issue. Now after downgrading to Big Sur 11.6.5 everything works again as expected. Its definitely a major bug that can result in huge data loss!

I had exactly this problem with a Seagate mobile drive; went into Recovery and erased/partitioned multiple times, it worked for a few days then back to the same problem. I finally ditched the Seagate as I had read of others with the problem, and purchased a Best Buy inexpensive drive (made by WD) , used Disk Utility to format and partition, and haven't had an issue since.

It seems the problems has been ironed out with Monterey 12.4 update. At least at my end. Utterly slow LaCie Mobile SSD seems to be back to the usual speeds after the update.

To update the drive's firmware go to the drive manufacturer's support site and look for the instructions for updating firmware.

Usually you need to download a utility from the support site as well as the firmware update. Some manufacturers only have a utility for a PC and in that case you have to connect the drive to a PC to update its firmware.

mariafromdarlington wrote:

Can you tell me how I update the drive’s firmware please?