Unable to access External Drives and Disk Utility after updating to macOS Sonoma.

In my case, I have an external Samsung SSD connected via usb C, and is formatted as APFS, but after I updated to Sonoma, I noticed randomly that it no longer sees the external drive until I restart the computer

My issue is that I have all my home directories formatted HFS+ on a Raid partition. It is HFS+ because there is software that can move and resize HFS+ partitions but not currently aware of software for APFS partitions. This was done years ago. Now with Sonoma it’s all broken. Worked fine in Ventura.

My hard disk is a one touch hub that can be used directly on a Mac, since I bought it, it always reads before I update to Sonoma, I thought it was already in apfs format out of the box, now how do I want to format it, it doesn't even recognize.

No, it's not okay. APFS is not for HDD. So still waiting for fix.

Depends on the purpose of the drive. If you are editing large files often, then they'll get fragmented and file access will slow. Otherwise, there's not an issue.

People, it doesn't matter what format it is in. I have been around the houses with support regarding this very same issue. I first came up against it in Ventura on an 8 TB backup disk formatted to APFS for Time Machine. At that stage I always kept a backup off site which could be called upon should the need arise. My computer since downloading Sonoma with no longer drives in the usb 3.1 bus. If I look under computer information the drive is listed but it will not show anywhere else or mount, forensic software I purchased from Seagate show me everything else but this drive just seems to have moved to the cloud in the sky. I wouldn't mind but everything with 'apple' is extra and certainly on this side of the pond they are not cheap.

Yeah, it goes same with my Mac mini M2 Pro, whenever I connect my 4 tb hard drive it takes lot of time to connect with Mac mini, now I'm regret why I updated the Mac OS Sonoma,

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I have had issues as well with external drives formatted as Mac OS Extended. I have a Mac Ultra, so I should NOT be running into speed issues at all, but I get slight lags when accessing files from the external drive, and this was not happening until I upgraded to Sonoma. The lags can be long enough at times that I'm actually sitting and waiting. It's quite annoying.

Would love to know if you find solutions (other than reformatting lots of drives LOL)..

Amy

Let's face it, Apple doesn't want you buying any equipment from anyone but Apple. They made our drives unusable. Their solution is for us to buy a new mac with a larger hard drive. I may just go back to my linux box.

MikeyBee123 wrote:

Let's face it, Apple doesn't want you buying any equipment from anyone but Apple. They made our drives unusable. Their solution is for us to buy a new mac with a larger hard drive. I may just go back to my linux box.

I have several USB and two Thunderbolt enclosures and haven’t had any problems with any of them on Sonoma. I don’t use ExFAT much, but no problems there, either. I also transfer files on FAT32 flash memory and SD cards.

There has got to be some other issue involved besides Sonoma.

Just lost another disk - Western Digital format exfat.

First disk was 8TB APFS Time Machine Disk.

I hope everyone has RAID disks set up, for disaster recovery. I expect something like this from a PC with windows but not a Mac.

Methinks this iMac will be sent back to Apple - under the Sale of Goods Act - It does do what says on the tin!

Well I've just bought two new drives, one for Time Machine and then the other for my irreplaceable music library and misc. files, and research materials. I've also upgraded my cloud storage.

The Time Machine has automatically formatted to APFS (Case Sensitive) encryption, the other Mac OS Journaled (extended).

I hope not to have another problem like this again, well at lest my cloud storage will have a full year of backups this time. The amount of research lost.... I could cry!

I’ve had problems with WD Passport 5TB and Sonoma. Tried every different way to get it to work. Took it to local IT shop after he could not sort it out whilst sharing my screen. Worked seamlessly with his older macOS. Got it back home and could not get it to work despite IT guys help sharing screen again for best part of an hour.

What a shame that Apple doesn't know how to connect the ports we purchased from them for peripherals. Could it be they don't want to know? The USB protocol must be very complex -- too complex for Apple engineers.

My FAT external SSD drive is being detected very slowly when boot up. When MAC will fix this problem? It makes me really angry about that. The latest problem of Logic loading UADx plugins have been solved after update. This is good. I hope Apple will solve the external FAT format drive issue as soon as possible.

The problem has been ongoing since the introduction of the new system and has not been resolved yet. Every time a new patch appears, I worry whether I will go backwards with the system or lose data again. Because something is wrong again. It has long been known that there is no full compatibility between PC and MAC systems. As for EXFAT files, if I format the disk to macosx, after connecting it to any system older than Windows 8, I want to repair it. Something is wrong here when we talk about new processors, and every time there is an update, a new conscious user must make backup copies