External Drives Keep Disconnecting on Sleep – Potential Data Loss Concern
I recently purchased two M4 MacBook Pros—one in November 2024 and another in January 2025—and I’ve noticed an issue that has been discussed for years: external drives randomly ejecting when the computer goes to sleep. Every morning (and sometimes throughout the day after my Mac has been idle for a while), I see the "Disk Not Ejected Properly" error, meaning my drives are being disconnected multiple times overnight or during inactivity.
This morning, again I noticed multiple disconnections overnight, and I’m now worried about potential data loss or drive damage due to repeated improper ejections. Frequent disconnects like this can lead to corrupted files, shortened drive lifespan, or even complete data loss, which is unacceptable—especially on a high-end, professional workstation.
I’m currently using a 14-inch MacBook Pro (November 2024) with an Apple M4 Pro chip, 24GB of memory, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. Despite running the latest hardware and macOS version, this issue persists. I have already disabled “Put hard drives to sleep when possible” in Energy Saver, but that hasn’t helped. I haven’t done extensive troubleshooting yet, but I’ve come across multiple threads mentioning workarounds like using third-party apps or preventing sleep entirely.
Has Apple ever acknowledged this issue? This isn’t a one-off case—this issue has been reported across multiple Mac models, multiple macOS versions, and multiple external drives—yet Apple has never provided an official solution. Instead, users are left relying on:
- Never letting the Mac sleep (which isn’t practical)
- Using third-party apps like Jettison (which shouldn’t be necessary)
It’s frustrating that such a fundamental issue—one that could lead to actual data loss—hasn’t been addressed. If Apple can engineer its own processors that run cool and efficiently, why can’t they fix something as simple as keeping an external drive connected properly?
Has anyone found a permanent fix? More importantly, has Apple ever addressed this in any official capacity? I’d love to hear if others are experiencing this on their M4 MacBook Pros, or if this is just the same macOS issue that has been ignored for years.
