4TB external SSD runs too hot to touch and may now be fried

Question

4TB external SSD runs too hot to touch and may now be fried

M2 Studio Ultra, base configuration, just upgraded to Sonoma 14.1.2

Trebleet aluminium Thunderbolt 3 enclosure

Sabrient 4TB fast SSD

My 4TB external SSD seems to have fried itself - it became extremely hot even though it was not in use and then I received several disc not ejected properly messages from OSX although the connection had not been touched.

The reason I am asking this question here is that the SSD temperature seemed to scale with the CPU activity on my Mac, cooling down when the Mac was less busy, and not vary with the SSD traffic which was actually zero at the time, and this seems odd to me.

I had just upgraded to Sonoma 14.1.2 and when the problem happened I got multiple 'SSD not ejected properly' messages one after the other, although the physical connection to the Mac was not touched. I'm assuming this is because the drive was failing? Now the drive is not visible in Finder even after restart / reconnect, except for once when it did briefly appear for about a second. Now if left connect it just just heats up rapidly so has been disconnected!

So the question is why did the dive temperature vary with the Mac workload when not in use? My other old 256GB SSD just sits there day in day out without issue - typical!

Thanks!

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 3, 2023 8:24 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

den.thed

Level 10

82,594 points

Dec 3, 2023 5:14 PM in response to Stuart Netherclift

According to Trebleet, none of the Sabrient SSDs are recommended for use in that enclosure with an M1 Mac.

see > https://www.trebleet.com/forum/thunderbolt-3-usb-ssd-chassis/latest-ssd-compatible-list

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

82,594 points

Dec 4, 2023 11:47 AM in response to Stuart Netherclift

You;'re welcome.

You can not upgrade the Mac Studio's Internal Storage after purchase.

If you have had the Mac Studio for less than 14 days, you can return it no questions ask and then order one with more storage. see > Sales Policies - Apple

If you have had the Mac Studio for more than 14 days, then perhaps you can wipe the Sabrent SSD and return it, then go for a supported SSD on the list.

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Answer 3

Dec 3, 2023 9:57 AM in response to Stuart Netherclift

'Too hot to touch' exceeds normal UnderWriters Lab specifications, and is NOT NORMAL.

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Answer 4

tbirdvet

Level 6

14,507 points

Dec 3, 2023 11:08 AM in response to Stuart Netherclift

I have several WD NVME TB drives in use. They will all get very warm when reading/writing and luke warm at idle. They have never been so hot as to fail as they tend to be self controlled as the speed will decrease if under heavy load no maintain acceptable temps.. I also use Trebleet enclosures. Try to connect your drive to another port on your Mac Studio. I had to do that recently as my bus got over loaded and the drive just stopped being recognized. After I removed some of my other connections it was recognized. That being said your Sabrent drive may have failed (I had one WD NVME drive fail for no obvious reason).

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Answer 5

Dec 4, 2023 10:47 AM in response to den.thed

Thank you! Interesting if bad news... It never even occurred to me that a specific SSD / enclosure combination might be incompatible with an M2 Mac over a thunderbolt 3 connection - so not all Thunderbolt 3 connections are equal I guess. The high price of the internal SSD upgrades in the Mac begins to look less unreasonable... I wonder what causes this.

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4TB external SSD runs too hot to touch and may now be fried

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