External Drives Keep Ejecting When Mac Sleeps

Question

External Drives Keep Ejecting When Mac Sleeps

During sleep something happens to the connection with my Mac where external drives will be disconnected automatically without ejecting. I can't initiate an eject, because the Mac is asleep; and those connections shouldn't be breaking just because the Mac sleeps.

This feels like a macOS security issue that started around the time Allow accessories to connect was created.

Any pref or cache I can trash, or log I can investigate that might help eliminate this issue?

I can't have drives unmounting during sleep.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.2

Posted on Dec 13, 2023 11:26 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Community+ 2026

Level 9

72,122 points

Dec 14, 2023 9:18 AM in response to snofamthrlsgoat

snofamthrlsgoat wrote:

This feels like a macOS security issue that started around the time Allow accessories to connect was created.

Have you tried to set this option to "Always" to see if it makes any difference....just as a test?

Also, try unchecking "Put hard disk to sleep when possible". This option is only available when an external drive is connected.

Set sleep and wake settings for your Mac - Apple

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Answer 2

Aug 29, 2024 1:35 PM in response to snofamthrlsgoat

"Never" solved it. i still had certain drives that would still unmount without ejecting, and i replaced those old cables and all is good now.

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Answer 3

Aug 12, 2024 10:34 AM in response to Nicholas N

Preventing hard drive sleep fixed the issue for me, at least.

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Answer 4

tbirdvet

Level 6

17,517 points

Dec 14, 2023 2:45 PM in response to snofamthrlsgoat

This has been reported by many. Only fix appears to not use the sleep function. Just have display turn off.

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Answer 5

Dec 14, 2023 10:08 AM in response to HWTech

Switched the connected accessories setting to Always yesterday and still unmounted without ejecting.

Switched the disk sleep setting to Never this morning, we'll see what happens.

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Answer 6

chdsl

Level 2

410 points

Dec 14, 2023 9:31 AM in response to snofamthrlsgoat

System Settings > Battery > Options >

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Answer 7

Dec 14, 2023 4:17 PM in response to tbirdvet

Thanks for the confirmation. Glad it's not just me.

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Answer 8

Jul 17, 2024 3:12 AM in response to snofamthrlsgoat

Let us know what happened and did you resolve as I am having same problem with external ssd and hard drives ?

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