External SSD not writable...

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Level 1

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External SSD not writable...

Hi everyone.

A few days ago I asked a question with regard to my inability to store downloaded games from Steam on my external SSD from my Mac. Below is the link:

Steam Writeable location error - Apple Community

Today as I was downloading a PDF from the Internet I could not save it to my external drive either. (For context I hadn't downloaded anything to my external drive in the past few weeks, with Steam being the exception, so I thought it was just an issue with Steam). I then went and did a Google Image search and tried to download a random image to my external drive, and I could not do it either. I switched browsers to Chrome and tried it again, and it returned me an 'Insufficient Permissions' error. However, I have set the SSD to read and write for all, and even under Disk Utility the drive has been set to writable.

In short, what I thought was a 'Steam specific problem' turned out to be some system error with my Mac (or my SSD?). The disk has been erased and formatted for Mac for context, and the problems have started after I upgraded to Mac OS Monterey 12.3.1.

Is there any fix for this?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.3

Posted on May 13, 2022 1:08 AM

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Answer 1

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Jay9954 Author

Level 1

12 points

May 13, 2022 3:34 AM in response to Jay9954

Hi everyone, I got the issue resolved.

Apparently, heading to Settings and Privacy and granting Full Disk Access solves the issue. Turns out I can no longer write to a drive assigned to Time Machine, and I also happen to be using this drive for my backups.

BTW in response to Luis Sequira1, I had erased and formatted the drive as an APFS Case Sensitive volume. So I'm guessing it had something to do with the update revoking writing access to Time Machine backup drives.

Sorry for the trouble.

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Answer 2

May 13, 2022 3:03 AM in response to Jay9954

It is vital to know how the SSD is formatted. Please post the screenshots that lllass requested.

I am guessing that it may formatted as NTFS, which would require third party drivers to write on.

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Answer 3

Owl-53

Level 10

102,019 points

May 13, 2022 5:09 AM in response to Jay9954

User Wrote " Apparently, heading to Settings and Privacy and granting Full Disk Access solves the issue. Turns out I can no longer write to a drive assigned to Time Machine, and I also happen to be using this drive for my backups."

The Time Machine Backup Drive, for good computer practices, should be used Exclusively for that purpose & Only that purpose.

Time Machine Backup Utility want Exclusive Access to the Drive.

And, can be corrected by More Learned Colleagues ( that is OK ) on this assertion - TM Backup renders to Drive as Read Only.

Changing to something else can compromise the Integrity of any TM Backup Snap Shots it has placed on the Drive.

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Answer 4

lllaass

Level 10

210,513 points

May 13, 2022 1:12 AM in response to Jay9954

What specific SSD?

Post screenshots of what Disk Utility shows about the SSD. One screenshot for each entry for the SSD since there is likely a top level entry and at least one daughter entry.

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External SSD not writable...

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