Monterey struggling with External SSD

KRisseeuw wrote:

1. I had several issues with external USB drives, Disk Utility and Time Machine on a new MacBook Pro M1 Max with Monterey 12.0.1.

USB3-drives are not properly recognized. Time Machine does not work.

2. USB-C drive did not work with either Time Machine or Disk Utility (see below).

Today I purchased a new SanDisk with USB-C connection to make a proper Time Machine backup. The Disk mounted, but Time Machine did not work, nor could I erase the drive with Disk Utility. I tried everything I knew, called Apple Support, but nothing worked (safe mode didn't work).

Workaround: I could solve it by using a Mac Mini 2018 with USB-C-Port, running MacOS Big Sur. Here the external SSD could properly mount and erasing + partitioning worked within 30 seconds. After this treatment, the drive worked well with my new MacBook. Time Machine backups worked fine after that.

Deducting from this, I see that it is not a hardware issue as much as a software issue, affecting both Time Machine and Disk Utility. I am guessing it has to do with MacOS Monterey.

The workaround as highlighted above solved it for the moment.

How on earth is this marked “solved”? The issue — Monterey has hosed compatibility with many, but not all, USB-C external drives — persists, even for KRisseeuw.

I'm also experiencing this issue, which has rendered my 2TB external LaCie SSD (model: LRD0TUA) unusable. 😡

The following are the symptoms that I've experienced:

• It takes an unusually long time to mount or unmount the external volumes.
• Disk Utility is unresponsive while the external volumes are being mounted or unmounted.
• Finder and most applications are sometimes unresponsive for a few minutes after I boot macOS (presumably while macOS is automatically mounting the external volumes).
• It sometimes takes an unusually long time (over 30 seconds) to open files that are stored on the external volumes.
• It sometimes takes an unusually long time for Time Machine backups to complete.
• While using a virtual machine that is stored on one of the external volumes, the virtual machine frequently becomes unresponsive.
• It sometimes takes an unusually long time to write small files to the external volumes using a command such as `dd if=/dev/zero of=/Volumes/LaCie/test bs=4096 count=2`.

I've noticed that the issue seems to affect write operations to a far greater extent than read operations.

I was hoping that the issue would have been resolved in the latest beta version of macOS 12.1 (build 21C5039b), but I was disheartened to discover that it wasn't. I was fairly certain that the issue began after I upgraded from macOS Big Sur to macOS Monterey, but, to exclude the possibility of a hardware fault, I installed macOS 11.6.1 (Big Sur) onto a separate volume. The issue didn't persist. (What a surprise! 😒)

Over the past few days I've spent many hours performing tests and writing a detailed bug report on the issue. Apple should now have all of the information that is required to fix it.

Doubt it. The interwebs are littered with people who have had issues with peripherals (mainly external drives, often connected via USB-C) that struck immediately after installing 12.0.1. From mount issues to slow downs, the install of Monterey is the root cause.

Apple Support will likely tell you that your drive has failed, and that this is entirely coincidental to the update. Do not believe them.

My experience: 2020 iMac (Intel, not M1 or M2), connected to two G-DRIVE mobile USB-C externals, one used for Photos (2TB) and the other used exclusively for Time Machine backus (4TB). The only differences aside from size is that one was manufactured in 2019 (2TB, astill working fine) and the other, a 2020 build, is hosed. (Except that it's not hosed: it works erfectly when I hook it p to my son's 2016 MBP running Big Sur.)

There have been various "fixes" floating about, most of which I've tried. But this is an Apple-related screw-up, and won;t likkely be solved without their intervention in an iterative update to Monterey. Apple owns this, and needs to address it. If you merged all the threads on this forum, and the Apple Developer forum, you'd likely have several thousand unhappy customers — many of whom, like me, purchased their now useless external drives through the Apple Store.

Ramt over,

Maggot

I had several issues with external USB drives, Disk Utility and Time Machine on a new MacBook Pro M1 Max with Monterey 12.0.1.

1. USB3-drives are not properly recognized. Time Machine does not work.
2. USB-C drive did not work with either Time Machine or Disk Utility (see below).

Today I purchased a new SanDisk with USB-C connection to make a proper Time Machine backup. The Disk mounted, but Time Machine did not work, nor could I erase the drive with Disk Utility. I tried everything I knew, called Apple Support, but nothing worked (safe mode didn't work).

Workaround: I could solve it by using a Mac Mini 2018 with USB-C-Port, running MacOS Big Sur. Here the external SSD could properly mount and erasing + partitioning worked within 30 seconds. After this treatment, the drive worked well with my new MacBook. Time Machine backups worked fine after that.

Deducting from this, I see that it is not a hardware issue as much as a software issue, affecting both Time Machine and Disk Utility. I am guessing it has to do with MacOS Monterey.

The workaround as highlighted above solved it for the moment.

Good afternoon moondav,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!

It sounds like you are having issues accessing data on a partitioned external drive, and we'd like to help.

If we understand your post correctly, the MacBook Pro you are using is a 2016 model that has been upgraded to macOS Monterey. The Seagate Fast SSD Media external drive with the APFS and macOS Extended Journaled partitions connects and opens on the iMac with macOS Big Sur as expected.

In case the issue is with the Seagate drive, do you have the files on that drive copied to another location?

Is it possible that one or more of the files you are trying to access are corrupt? Try choosing a different file to open to test.

Do you have a different external drive formatted with APFS that you can connect to your MacBook Pro 2016 to determine if you have the same issue with Finder and opening files on that drive?

The resource below will provide some guidance:

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

If the issue persists, please reply to this thread and we'll do our best to help you!

Take care.

I'm not who you directed this too, Old Toad, but here's my Etrecheck report — I have the same basic issue. (One USB-C drive not mounting after Monterey; the other, same make/manufacturer but different size and date of birth, works fine. All drives still mount and work under Big Sur.)

Apologies for the delay, attached is the Etrecheck report as requested, a few other things I've noticed since the Monterey update Safari and Finder are slower than Big Sur and Bluetooth devices, Magic Mouse & Keyboard takes a while to be connected.

From https://www.techrepublic.com/article/apfs-vs-hfs-which-apple-filesystem-is-better/

Pros of Apple's APFS

• Allows for clones or multiple copies of the same file, with only changes stored as deltas, which reduces storage space when making revisions or copying files
• Can create point-in-time snapshots
• Full-disk encryption with single or multi-key encryption for added security
• Uses checksums for data integrity of metadata
• Metadata corruption prevention due to creating new records instead of overwriting existing ones, which can become corrupt due to system crashes
• Increases performance on some devices by eliminating the need to write changes twice compared to HFS+ Journaled file systems
• More efficient management of storage typically yields additional free space.

Cons of Apple's APFS

• Checksums are only for metadata integrity--not user data
• Compression is not available.
• Encrypted volumes can only be accessible by other computers running newer versions of macOS
• Does not support Fusion drives
• Cannot utilize NVRAM for data storage

Conclusion

HFS+ has likely seen the sunset and will probably not have any future augmentations to its base; APFS is the future file system for Apple devices, and I expect it will be expanded upon to offer more features. When comparing the pros and cons of both file systems, APFS comes out ahead for newer devices moving forward.

I have had various issues with external SSD drives since upgrading to Monterey on a 2020 MacBook Pro. To summarize:

1. Carbon Copy Cloner backups to external Sandisk SSD via USB-C cable hang. Sometimes MacBook will just shutdown, sometimes it will shutdown and restart, and sometimes I will need to force it to shutdown
2. Disk Utility hangs when opening while the SSD is connected.
3. Inability to erase SSD from Disk Utility. Note I was able to erase it from a 2016 MacBook Pro also running Monterey and was able to run a full CCC backup from that machine
4. Random Finder hangs when SSD is connected
5. Inability to eject SSD even when it seems to be operating normally.
6. I also have a Samsung T7 SSD that experiences similar problems but not as often as the Sandisk.

I had none of these issues before upgrading to Monterey.

I am using 2 external SSDs (Samsung 500GB T5) connected via USB 3.1 (Gen 2) to a Mac mini (2018). All the volumes are APFS. While I haven't experienced your exact issue, I did notice that it is taking much (longer compared to Big Sur) to mount the APFS volumes from external drives. I haven't measured the time, but I would estimate that all the volumes -- including encrypted Time Machine volumes -- mount within a few minutes.

- Pie Lover

Take a look at these:

OWC Express Portable Bus-Powered USB 3.0 Enclosure for 2.5" SATA Notebook HDDs & SSDs - Discreet Black

OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini USB-C 10Gb/s Portable Storage Enclosure

OWC Envoy Pro EX USB-C M.2 SSD Enclosure

However, I would contact OWC's Customer Support to find out which of their enclosures would best suit your particular Mac, SSD to put in it and budget.

OWC is the premier Mac 3rd party hardware provider.

mfulat:

Please download and run Etrecheck.  Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support  to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

IMPORTANT:

Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck in the Etrecheck's Privacy preference pane so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:

Also click and read the About info to further permit full disk access.

Copy the report

and use the Additional Text button to include the report in your reply.

That's a good point since the firmware update, if any, should be backwards compatible with older versions of macOS. Just to be sure, you could verify the firmware version via System Report (for Big Sur and Monterey). Below is my configuration which clearly will be very different from yours.

- Pie Lover

This is from a support article at Western Digital (who also owns SanDisk and G-Drive). They acknowledge the bug and their solution is to format the drive to exFAT. Obviously not really a solution. I'm sure both companies will continue pointing fingers back and forth. I just hope it gets fixed.

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..