USB3 not working on my Retina MBP

macuser345 wrote:

...I bought a new MBP Retina last week and none of my USB 3 Harddrives are recognised by it. (3 different ones) I went to Apple Support today and they first blamed the harddrive but then we tried it on all their Retinas and it doesn't work on any of them...

Are these bus-powered drives or do they have their own power supplies?

Hi, The WD definitely works on my MBP 13" and on iMac but I haven't been able to check with a 15". One of my other harddrives that doesn't work is a Seagate GoFlex which also works on all other computers so I'm pretty sure its the Retina

I have two WD which have a power supply and one Seagate GoFlex which is a portable

macuser345 wrote:

Hi, The WD definitely works on my MBP 13" and on iMac but I haven't been able to check with a 15". One of my other harddrives that doesn't work is a Seagate GoFlex which also works on all other computers so I'm pretty sure its the Retina

I tend to agree, 3 drives and 2 brands is pointing at the Machine not the drives. But it is not nornal. I would test that your drives work on a Non Retina machine (test the Seagate as well)

Thanks for that, and I agree that a Software Update (or possibly firmware) is likely to take care of it.

Thanks for the reply! It's a shame it still hasn't been fixed. I run a video production company and have many different harddrives and need to use some portable ones so this is definitely a problem. Let's hope for an update from Apple very soon! Thanks for your help!

I went (am going) straight from FW800 to TBolt, hopefully avoiding the USB3 swamp entirely.

macuser345 wrote:

I have two WD which have a power supply and one Seagate GoFlex which is a portable

FWIW, I've been using a couple of Toshiba 3TB externals with a rMBP 15" 2013 with no trouble and full USB 3.0 speed. I just tried a WD MyBook Essential drive and that worked properly too. Only variable may be that I used the Toshiba cable with the WD and that none of the externals are bus powered. I've also found that while a USB 2.0 device resets the Mac's USB 3.0 port to 2.0 and sees a subsequent 3.0 device as 2.0, the port resets itself to 3.0 speed during the transfer (watched it in Activity Monitor). With all the complaints I've read since this thread started, I've been surprised at how well the combine 2.0/3.0 port works.

Following StuartOnLine's link reminded me of the other issues, so, both right and left side ports work and the ports support booting from external boot drives at USB 3.0 speeds, which gives some of the flexibility of the Mac Pro.

I have FW drives almost entirely, I can use them with the TB-FW adaptor, I can't use them with USB ports (2 or 3) so the route is kinda chosen for me.

macuser345

I had this same issue when I purchased the 15" Retina Display in June 2012. In fact I ended talking to one of the Techs from Apple Hqs after I posted this issue in the Apple Forum. They actually called me at home to discuss this issue. We did end up resolving this issue. See this Forum for the results we came up with.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4064531?answerId=18782308022#18782308022

Ended up doing a Tremninal Control input change.

Since then all of my USB 3 drives have worked with not issues.

Stu

I finally managed to get a Seagate Backup Plus 1TB drive to always work as USB3. I reformatted to Mac GUID, and use it for backups and data. I have also used a 2.5" bare drive off of the Segate adapter and it runs as USB3. Making sure to plug in a fully compliant USB3 drive and cable, not USB2 drive first does apply.

I still have issues with a Newer Tech Voyager Q (quad I/O) using USB3, firmware is bad. I use the FW800 or Ethernet port instead. Those work fine.

Good luck, Greg

You solve that problem? I have the same problem...only usb 3.0 devices work