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Disk did not eject properly

Hi Community


I have gotten a message a few times now that an external disk did not eject properly, this is upon waiting my mac up, i haven't touched anything else. It's the external hard drive i use for my time machine. i have it plugged into the Satachi Stand and hub that my mini mac is connected to, I have used this hard drive for my time machine on my last mac and didn't encounter this issue. Should the hard drive for the time machine be connected directlyto the mac its self? Thank you

Mac mini, macOS 13.3

Posted on May 20, 2023 5:22 PM

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Posted on May 20, 2023 5:55 PM

This is a common problem.

Don't connect the drive to the Mac through the hub.

Yes, the drive should be connect directly to one of the Thunderbolt/USB ports on the computer.


Also, check System Settings and disable "Allow hard drives to Sleep when possible".

And while you're at it, if this is an M1/M2 Mac mini, you can safely disable Sleep for the computer. The Mx processors don't need it and it seems to cause plenty of problems for peripherals. Continue to allow the display to sleep, if you like.

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Question marked as Best reply

May 20, 2023 5:55 PM in response to deborah jackson

This is a common problem.

Don't connect the drive to the Mac through the hub.

Yes, the drive should be connect directly to one of the Thunderbolt/USB ports on the computer.


Also, check System Settings and disable "Allow hard drives to Sleep when possible".

And while you're at it, if this is an M1/M2 Mac mini, you can safely disable Sleep for the computer. The Mx processors don't need it and it seems to cause plenty of problems for peripherals. Continue to allow the display to sleep, if you like.

Jun 2, 2023 2:57 PM in response to D.I. Johnson

My external drives keep connecting and disconnecting to my Macbook Pro. It does this automatically and unless I turn off the computer or disconnect the drives, it just keeps doing it. If I forget to turn OFF the computer, when I wake it up, I have HUNDREDS of these messages and I have to delete them one at a time. It takes about 10-15 mins to delete each.


I've tried everything to stop this but nothing works. Is there at least an easy way to delete every one of these messages without having to do each, individually?

I have just about lost all faith in Apple because of this. You'd think they could fix this in an update, but no...it just keeps doing it.

I'm about to go back to (ugh!) Windows.

Jun 2, 2023 3:11 PM in response to The Ant

It sounds like your external drive is having trouble maintaining its connection to the MBP. There are several reasons this may be happening, and it likely will not be fixed with a software update. Most likely it's a failure of the drive itself, or the drive enclosure or cable.


I suggest you please post your problem as a new question in the community so that all may see it fresh and give it the full attention that it deserves.

Oct 31, 2023 2:02 PM in response to deborah jackson

I have been having this problem with a 1 Tbyte Crucial X6 solid-state drive on my 2018 MacMini and contacted the supplier. At first, they said I needed to move the drive to a different port on the Mini, which stopped the disk ejection errors for about 10 days before it started again. Yesterday I complained to them again and got the following


"We would like to inform that we would request you to update the system and certain models of internal SATA drives might unexpectedly disconnect from your computer after your Mac wakes from sleep. This can occur if your Mac automatically goes to sleep or if you manually put your Mac to sleep. We would like to inform that to resolve this issue, update to macOS Ventura 13.5 or later." This seems to imply that Crucial thinks it may be an incompatibility between the MacOS and the Crucial drive.


I had already updated to Ventura 13.5, but I upgraded to 13.6.1 and will see what happens.

Disk did not eject properly

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