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moondav Author

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

Top-ranking reply

Maggot

Level 2

209 points

Posted on Nov 21, 2021 8:46 AM

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.

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155 replies

Nov 3, 2021 4:24 AM in response to BlueberryLover

Ok, but in my case, at least, the list of volumes is simple. There is not a "container disk 1" voice. Looks your volumes are into another volume. Could this slow down the performance?

Nov 3, 2021 5:37 AM in response to BlueberryLover

Confused with somebody else. 😒

Nov 3, 2021 6:41 AM in response to BlueberryLover

I'm not against APFS. I don' t understand the meaning of this answer. I was just saying the structure of your ssd is a bit complex than mine. I'll post a picture of mine as soon as I can.

Nov 3, 2021 6:45 AM in response to majortom1967

You had asked about APFS performance ...

Nov 5, 2021 9:47 AM in response to moondav

Occasionally, I had trouble running the Disk Utility directly. In some case, running the Disk Utility from the stand-alone installer will work while running it under the full OS will not.

- Pie Lover

Nov 13, 2021 12:25 PM in response to Old Toad

I think by "compression" people mean built-in compression rather than using Zip or a Disk Image with compression.

- Pie Lover

Nov 13, 2021 1:25 PM in response to Old Toad

Sorry, not what I meant ... the disk implements a volume-wide compression scheme for all storage. It compresses and decompresses files automatically without explicit action from the user.

- Pie Lover

Nov 21, 2021 9:36 AM in response to judysings

Sorry, it is not solved. I just had a workaround. As far as I can see it’s a clear Monterey issue.

pillguy

Level 4

1,339 points

Nov 21, 2021 9:42 AM in response to Maggot

I don’t have another Mac, so I have no resolution other than taking it to an Apple store or a friend. Ridiculous.

Dec 1, 2021 6:19 AM in response to KRisseeuw

How is this marked as "solved"?

And I tried also to erase/partition my external SSD from Big-Sur; no difference at all.

Maggot

Level 2

209 points

Dec 2, 2021 8:26 AM in response to Old Toad

That’s really disturbing about ExpressVPN. Can’t believe they’d undercut the integrity they’ve built by selling to Kape, or Crossrider.

Thanks for this, Old Toad.

Dec 2, 2021 11:10 AM in response to Old Toad

You won't find anything suspicious; this happens to me on a fresh and clean install (reformat to the bone and install).

It must be something deep in the kernel that hangs the system.

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.

mfulat

Level 1

8 points

Dec 5, 2021 5:17 AM in response to moondav

Nicw job , but you shouldn’t have to do this. Monterey has serious problems with External SSD. Apple should be more proactive in fixing this issue. As usual nothing from Apple.

Dec 10, 2021 12:01 PM in response to mfulat

I'm using the internal Fusion drive on an iMac 2017... same issue here: 5-10 minutes to boot, so it's not just with external drives.

Monterey struggling with External SSD