External SSD drives continuously disconnect then reconnect new M2 Mac mini pro

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External SSD drives continuously disconnect then reconnect new M2 Mac mini pro

Just got the new M2 mini with an apple studio display. Bought 2 new San Disk SSD drives for external storage, and a satechi dock for extra ports with an internal 2tb ssd card. They will all randomly drop then reconnect throughout the day. Some days it will only be one of the drives, other days all 3 will do it. Most of the time I will have 2 or 3 messages that one of them was disconnected improperly, but I just got home and had 20 "disk not ejected properly" errors. I saw a long thread with this issue from the M1 Mac mini, but it never appeared to have a solution. I have the energy saver "put hard disks to sleep when possible" toggled off. Makes me think there is some problem with the thunderbolt port interface if it's not a software issue.

Any thoughts? Is my Mac mini the problem or is it something that people are just having to live with?

Mac mini (M2, 2023)

Posted on Mar 21, 2023 2:05 PM

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Answer 1

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den.thed

Level 10

93,400 points

Mar 21, 2023 2:33 PM in response to tdawgmd

Are all the SSDs USB-C or a mix of USB-A and USB-C?

Is the Satechi Dock self-power or bus-powered?

It sounds like you have to many bus-powered devices on the Dock and need to spread the external drive load out onto more of the M2 Mac mini Pro’s USB-C ports.

I think I would try one external drive on the dock or display and the other directly on one of the Mac mini’s USB- C ports.

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

93,400 points

Mar 22, 2023 5:07 AM in response to tdawgmd

1) Disable Automatic computer sleep and use the Apple dropdown to shutdown or sleep.

Apple > System Settings > Displays > Advanced… > Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off

2) Try and balance the display, drive and other device load between Bus 0 and Bus 1

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Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,814 points

Mar 23, 2023 5:21 AM in response to tdawgmd

My external Crucial X8 2TB SSD are directly connected to my M2 mini Pro, my 2021 MBP M1 Pro, or 2020 Core i7 iMac (direct to TB port, or via Startech hub) and none have ever exhibited spontaneous disconnects. All drives are formatted APFS.

I recommend that you boot that M2 into Recovery and run Disk Utility First Aid on the Sandisk SSD while directly attached to your M2 mini. Afterward, if the Sandisk misbehaves, it may have something to do with that Satechi dock. Did the latter require any driver installation, or does Satechi have a firmware update for their hub?

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Answer 4

tdawgmd Author

Level 1

33 points

Mar 23, 2023 6:15 AM in response to VikingOSX

So this is still happening with the Satechi disconnected. The 2 San disk drives are plugged in to thunderbolt ports directly on the mini. Pretty sure there’s a problem with power delivery to the thunderbolt ports. Will be contacting apple about an exchange. The suggestion about staggering the drives to different buses may be helpful, but honestly if I want to have 4 drives plugged into those ports, I should be able to do that without power drops and disconnects.

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Answer 5

den.thed

Level 10

93,400 points

Mar 21, 2023 3:32 PM in response to tdawgmd

It’s starting to sound like the Satechi Hub and Drive is the problem.

Disconnect the Satechi Hub and set it aside. Then if the problem goes away, return the Satechi Hub and get another USB-C Hub and/or just another 2T SSD.

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Answer 6

den.thed

Level 10

93,400 points

Mar 21, 2023 2:46 PM in response to tdawgmd

Try staggering the load across the four ports, with half on ports 1&2 and the other half on ports 3&4.

Then if you are still having an issue, I suspect that you may have a bad cord, drive or other device somewhere in the mix.

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Answer 7

tdawgmd Author

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33 points

Mar 26, 2023 11:55 AM in response to hcsitas

Right now the only thing plugged into the mini is the studio display. There is a 2tb SanDisk extreme portable SSD plugged into one of the ports on the display. I did this at 8am this morning and so far no drops. Last night, this same drive was the only additional thing plugged directly into one of the ports on the mini. It dropped 4 times. The Satechi has been out of the picture since we started all this so it's not the problem.

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Answer 8

hcsitas

Level 6

13,970 points

Mar 26, 2023 10:27 AM in response to tdawgmd

Is the Satechi still in the picture? Remove it, complicates matters.

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Answer 9

hcsitas

Level 6

13,970 points

Mar 30, 2023 10:47 AM in response to tdawgmd

Have you tried a new cable? Apple, 1m max.

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Answer 10

tdawgmd Author

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33 points

Mar 22, 2023 3:57 AM in response to den.thed

Disconnected the Satechi and connected the SSDs directly to the mini. Overnight, they dropped once, which is an improvement. Going to see what happens throughout the day today, then plug the disks into the display for several days and report back. Still odd that they would drop at all.

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Answer 11

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,814 points

Mar 23, 2023 6:57 AM in response to tdawgmd

Did you boot into Recovery and confirm via First Aid that these SanDisk drives are OK? Does Sandisk offer any firmware updates for these (new) drives? Do other brand external SSD drives exhibit the same disconnect behavior?

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Answer 12

hcsitas

Level 6

13,970 points

Mar 26, 2023 11:58 AM in response to tdawgmd

Yes, but you haven’t tested the solo configuration on all the mini ports, correct? I would do that next.

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Answer 13

hcsitas

Level 6

13,970 points

Mar 30, 2023 10:51 AM in response to tdawgmd

They have different hardware & firmware, n/a. Try with an Apple cable 1m or less.

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Answer 14

tdawgmd Author

Level 1

33 points

Mar 26, 2023 8:22 AM in response to hcsitas

Unfortunately it's still happening. At first it seemed better so I plugged everything back in and had several drops throughout the day of each of the different drives. I then plugged in just one of the drives and that seemed to be better for a whole day with no drops, however, this morning it dropped 4 times overnight. My next troubleshooting move is to plug one drive into the studio display and see how that goes. I did get on sandisks website to check for any firmware upgrades and according to the site there aren't any. I am fairly convinced there must be something going on with the thunderbolt bus power when the display is off, because it doesn't happen while actively using the mini.

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Answer 15

tdawgmd Author

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33 points

Mar 27, 2023 1:03 PM in response to hcsitas

Well, can confirm that the drive doesn't drop when connected to the display. Now have it connected to the farthest port on the right on the mini(if you're looking at the back). The display is connected on the farthest left port.

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External SSD drives continuously disconnect then reconnect new M2 Mac mini pro

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