Why are my external hard drives being disconnected randomly?

Question

Why are my external hard drives being disconnected randomly?

I have a 14" MBP with the M1 Max chip. Running Time Machine to an external drive, the drive seems to shut down or disappear with the warning that the disk was improperly ejected, then reappear but not be logged on.

More pronounced is the problem when running Adobe Lightroom Classic that requires an external drive for the catalog. While leaving LR on, with external drive connected, the computer spit out 127 warnings overnight about incorrectly disconnecting my external drive. This also caused LR to run additional checks.

Is there something special going on internally that shuts the USB-C connections down?

This is not a matter of just changing ports or connections or a loose connection.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 12.4

Posted on Jul 21, 2022 11:50 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 6

11,046 points

Jul 21, 2022 12:36 PM in response to Lindabeautiful

I have also been dealing with this problem. I have been using a hub, and the drives connected to the hub were doing the same thing-- I got multiple improper disconnects over a night. I have switched the cable connecting the hub, and the problems, so far, have seemed to disappear. This is tentative-- I'll need to watch further. But first thing thing to try is: check your cables!

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Answer 2

Jul 21, 2022 2:15 PM in response to Lindabeautiful

Thanks Richard. I thought the same thing, but then I removed the hub and connected each drive separately and at different times, both directly to the computer using a single connect adapter (2 different kinds) using 2 different USB-C computer terminals on the computer. And I also changed cables. The one drive is a 4 TB G- Drive and the other is a 4 Tb Seagate. Both have continued to improperly log off or disconnect. One (theTime Machine B/U) just reported again while I have been typing. So I need other ideas.

I THINK THIS IS A SOFTWARE GLITCH! Switching over to another computer (2017 MBP 15") and trying LR and also Time Machine had similar results.

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Answer 3

Jul 22, 2022 8:30 AM in response to Lindabeautiful

Wow-- it seems like you have eliminated everything. You've exchanged each bit of hardware-- different ports, different drives, different cables. Even different machines! But are they both running 12.4? If not, it doesn't seem that it could be software, either. If it's not hardware or software, that only leaves ghosts and mental disease...

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Why are my external hard drives being disconnected randomly?

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