SSD drive keeps ejecting and remounting at night

Question

Level 2

155 points

SSD drive keeps ejecting and remounting at night

I have a Crucial 2TB X8 SSD drive and lately I have found that it keeps ejecting and remounting, but only at night. In the morning I get the message

It is always reconnected in the morning. I have chosen "do not put hard disks to sleep when possible" in system preferences, but that's not helping.

I have other hard drives connected via USB, but they do not eject. The SSD is USB-C and it is connected directly in the back of the Mac Studio.

Seems to me it can't be an issue with the drive or it would happen at various times, not just at night. It feels like it must be a system thing ejecting the drive when the Mac is not in use for a while, but what? I fear this ejecting will corrupt the drive. I have my Photos library on it, so I am especially concerned (also have it backed up to Time Machine, but still).

Any ideas how to stop this?

Mac Studio (2022)

Posted on May 20, 2023 1:04 PM

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Answer 1

Cartoonguy Author

Level 2

155 points

May 20, 2023 3:01 PM in response to Cartoonguy

Hold on, I just found out that the sleep setting for the Mac is now hidden in the display settings in a sub menu. Weird. Anyway, I have switched off sleeping now so will see how that works out. It is dumb that I have to keep the Mac awake 24/7 just so it doesn't eject the SSD. Surely that's not a sensible design feature.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,841 points

May 22, 2023 11:02 AM in response to Cartoonguy

I'm off the school that I shutdown my Mac each night. It only takes about 30 seconds to boot up so it's not an inconvenience. There's an additional benefit to shutting down each night: a cleaning out of temporary system and application cache and swap files. That improves performance when one of those files gets corrupted an causes issues.

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Answer 3

Cartoonguy Author

Level 2

155 points

May 20, 2023 2:54 PM in response to xxx289

It's plugged into the rear Thunderbolt port, so wouldn't that provide the necessary power? Plugging into the front USB-C does not provide the same RW speed performance as the Thunderbolt, for some reason, so I want to use that rear port.

How can I tell the Mac never to sleep? That option does not appear in the Energy Saver settings anymore. It used to.

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Answer 4

Cartoonguy Author

Level 2

155 points

May 20, 2023 2:56 PM in response to Old Toad

The other drives are USB 3 and they do not eject, only the SSD into the Thunderbolt, which works just fine until night time, so I suspect it's not a power issue, but a power being cut off issue, so I just have to figure out how to stop the Mac from sleeping, but funny that choosing to not put hard drives to sleep still puts them to sleep.

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Answer 5

Cartoonguy Author

Level 2

155 points

May 22, 2023 10:53 AM in response to Cartoonguy

Two days since turning off sleep in the monitor preferences and so far, have not had the ejected SSD issue, so hoping this is that answer.

I wonder how much energy is used by leaving the Mac Studio "awake". I imagine not too much if nothing is going on. I do switch the monitor off though, so that saves some energy.

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Answer 6

pbfriel

Level 1

8 points

Dec 1, 2023 11:29 AM in response to Cartoonguy

I tried this but my late 2013 iMac still ejects all my external USB3 drives SSD or HDD, It is impossible to do a backup of my system or copy large files over to any external drive. Searching on the net it seems that there are many Mac users with this problem no matter what Mac they have or whatever OS they are running. None of my earlier iMac's have this problem but they all have USB 2 ports not USB 3. Why has Apple not fixed this problem and it makes no difference if I use a powered USB3 drive the problem still happens. It seems to me after everything I have tried over the past week that it must be a problem with the USB drivers. HELP ME APPLE!

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Answer 7

Old Toad

Level 10

210,841 points

May 20, 2023 2:19 PM in response to Cartoonguy

You might have to get a self powered USB hub if what xxx289 suggested is the cause.

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Answer 8

xxx289

Level 1

13 points

May 20, 2023 1:22 PM in response to Cartoonguy

What version of Mac OS do you have? and what device do you use....model , year?

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Answer 9

Cartoonguy Author

Level 2

155 points

May 20, 2023 1:22 PM in response to xxx289

Oh right. Very latest Ventura. 13.4. Was doing it before I just updated to 13.4 as well.

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Answer 10

xxx289

Level 1

13 points

May 20, 2023 1:31 PM in response to Cartoonguy

If your Mac going to sleep, you SSD is going to sleep too, simply cos your drive is usb powered. Try to use another port. I think not all ports have power when Mac go to sleep.

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