ExFAT Disk Slow to mount due to File System Checker scanning it after rebooting even when ejecting before shutdown

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ExFAT Disk Slow to mount due to File System Checker scanning it after rebooting even when ejecting before shutdown

I have the same issue as here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255237346

Every time I shutdown my MacBook Pro (even if I correctly eject the External exFAT disk before shutting down), the drive will sit there reading for about 2 minutes before mounting. The File System Checker process is running and taking about 7.5% CPU during this time, as soon as it mounts the process goes away. It would appear as if MacOS is scanning the disk for errors every time, yet I have not used this drive In another PC or Mac between shutting it down and reopening. I have run First Aid on the disk and it finds nothing, does MacOS support exFAT drives or not, because it would appear it doesn't properly? What a piece of crap.

Running MacOS Sequoia 15.3.1 (24D70)

The drive is running a 2.5 Sata SSD inside a 2.5 mm USB-C caddy its a 4tb drive formatted to exFAT, I use exFAT because I want to be able to use this drive on windows. Is this another attempt at forcing Apple users to not use cross compatible file systems and forcing them to use Apple for everything, absolutely rediculous... Wish I had never had bought this Apple POS.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Mar 3, 2025 3:11 AM

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TheToid Author

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8 points

Mar 3, 2025 3:37 AM in response to TheToid

I tried this post here:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/230712

And it seems to have disabled the File System Check on this drive for now... Will post back if it starts happening again, still this should work properly, its a pretty basic thing, "most advanced OS ever", what a load of crud...

#Get the disk identifier of the ExFAT partition
diskutil list
#Get the UUID of the ExFAT volume with diskXsY being its disk identifier
diskutil info /dev/diskXsY
#Create and edit /etc/fstab 
sudo vifs

Add a line with the following content after activating insert mode (e.g with I)

#Replace the UUID below by the one found earlier!
UUID=2FECDB7A-15F0-36F9-9A47-483B9669D6DC none exfat rw,auto 0 0

Hit esc to leave insert mode. Enter :w! to write the file to disk and :q to quit vifs.

Reboot your Mac.

The last 0 should disable fsck.

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ExFAT Disk Slow to mount due to File System Checker scanning it after rebooting even when ejecting before shutdown

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