Level 1

52 points

Monterey struggling with External SSD

I had meant to add this to another tread but can't now find it - not even in Safari History.. Basically since upgrading to Monterey my MacBook Pro can't connect correctly to external SSD.

This is the text I was going to add to other thread.

When I connect my Seagate Fast SSD Media 1Tb which has two partitions one APFS and the other Mac OS Extended Journaled, the OS Ext mounts instantly but the three containers of the APFS take for ever. When I finally managed to open a folder in and APFS container and tried to open it, it threw the Finder into a nervous breakdown which could not be Relaunched via Force Quit. Disconnecting the drive brought Finder back to life. I tried on another port on my MacBook Pro 2016 and tried a different cable but all to no avail. Connected drive to iMac running Big Sur and all works fine. I was tempted to reformat the Max OS Ext to APFS but will wait a while and no great urgency.

Posted on Nov 1, 2021 3:28 PM

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cpdmac

Level 1

54 points

Posted on Feb 17, 2022 12:00 AM

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..

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155 replies

Nov 13, 2021 12:23 PM in response to Maggot

I wonder if your workaround would have also worked on your M1Max Mac Book Pro using the Disk Utility that comes with the bootable installer for Big Sur. I used this trick to get around a restriction (with Disk Images) that seems to have been introduced with Monterey.

Speaking of luck :-), I'm thinking about getting an M1 based Mac (probably the new Mac mini). Still photography is a hobby but recently I've been experimenting with video using iMovie.

- Pie Lover

Dec 1, 2021 6:15 AM in response to Richard Brown4

Ditto, all of the above on an iMac 2017.

I will add: the drive that does not work under Monterey is an SSD ADATA with USB-C connection. I have other (older) drives via USB-A that work fine (seemingly), both HD's and SSD. But the "problematic" drive works perfectly on the same machine if I boot in Big-Sur.

I also tried with a USB-C (on the drive side) to USB-A (on the iMac side) cable and the result is the same. There must be some incompatibility of Monterey with some newer controllers.

Will now downgrade and wait for better times to upgrade...

Old Toad

Level 10

215,196 points

Dec 2, 2021 10:57 AM in response to mfulat

I don't see any of the usual suspects in the report. Are you booting from the internal drive or an external SSD? The read and write times are about what I get when booting from an external SSD.

If you have most of your data files on the internal 5400 rpm drive that could be why you're seeing slowing. But boot times are depending on the drive type the system is on.

I would remove all of the items from the System/Users & Groups/Login Items preference pane and see if there's any improvement in performance. If there is then add them back one at a time to see which one slows things down the most.

Maggot

Level 2

251 points

Dec 30, 2021 1:09 PM in response to BlueberryLover

PieLover, frankly, I'm not sure this helps those who are experiencing issues. We've established — a long time ago — that not all drives and systems are affected, but some are. That 12.1 did not clear things up for those still experiencing problems with their external drives under Monterey is also well-known.

I was lucky — for the most part, my issues were resolved with 12.1. But others, sadly, are still facing problems.

mfulat

Level 1

8 points

Dec 2, 2021 12:36 PM in response to Old Toad

I’m booting from the SSD and with iCloud for my main data files. The internal HDD is basically redundant, only tend to use it for backups.

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Monterey struggling with External SSD