Macbook Air usb3 not working!

confirming NO improvement in USB 3 support for external USB 3 HDD. HDD spins up/spins down, spins up, spins down ad nauseum. Connection and use 100% through USB2 hub, but useless when directly plugged into USB 3 port on MacBook Air (mid-2012)

a shame as 10.8.1 didn't fix the external HDMI video output issue either

oh well, perhaps 10.8.2 might fix it!

Model Name: MacBook Air

Model Identifier: MacBookAir5,2

Processor Name: Intel Core i5

Processor Speed: 1.8 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 2

Memory: 4 GB

SAME PROBLEM. FFS. New Macbook Air, WITH USB 3. FIX IT APPLE!

I have the new (2012) MacBook Air w/512GB SSD. Here's my problem: I have two usb 3.0 drives. I am using a 1TB for Time Machine and a 500gb for a cloned bootable disk. I am able to mount, read and write from the usb 3.0 drives (hence I was able to create the bootable drive and the Time Machine backups, but I cannot boot the bootable disk from the direct usb 3.0 ports but I can boot from the usb 2.0 ports on my Thunderbird display. Can also boot from my 2011 MacBook Air's usb 2.0 ports. So good news: it took no time to create the bootable drive using fast usb 3.0. Bad news: cannot boot the usb 3.0 drive from the onboard usb 3.0 ports!! Incidently, I can boot a usb 2.0 drive from the usb 3.0 port. So basically I may as well have usb 2.0 ports except that the write speed is indeed faster.

Repeating my post from July 17 on this discussion, USB 3.0 does work on my mid-2012 MacBook Air:

I have a USB 3 thumb drive - Kingston Digital Data Traveler Ultimate 3.0 Generation 2 - which works just fine on my MacBook Air mid-2012 13" 8GB machine. The USB ports on the MacBook Air support both USB 2 and USB 3, but I can tell from the transfer speed to the thumb drive that it's working as a USB 3.

Yes, I also have a Kingston usb 3.0 thumb drive (256gb!) and it works great also have a Patriot usb 3.0 8gb thumb drive that I made into bootable media & a 64GB Patriot usb 3.0 Xporter - very speedy. The thumb drives, because not much power is needed work great. However, external spinning HD's not so much. I have 2 Silicon Power Stream S20 drives that I can read and write to but cannot boot from. I have 2 usb 3.0 Toshibas that just keep dimounting unless I use usb 2.0 (through the Thunderbolt display or extension cable). I just received a LaCie 500GB Porsche Design P'9223 USB 3.0 portable drive. I created a bootable back up and guess what, it does boot. This drive was created for the Mac so maybe needs less power? Anyway there's a 500gb and a 1TB LaCie model. A little pricey ($99.99 for the 500gb) but bought it at work.

Thank you so much!

I was fighting with this over 2 month... and realizing that the new update didn't fix this problem was so frustrating...

I just bought a USB Hub - the easiest stupid solution - everything works fine now!

I just replaced an older MacBook with a MBA, and my Belkin 2.0 hub quit working with the MBA after the first few hours. I'm not sure if it's related to the problems every one here is having, but I ran across this thread while researching.

Thanks for the info. However, the point is usb 3.0 is not working. We know that it can work with usb 2.0. Apple advertises that these new computers as usb 3.0 compliant with the massive speeds expected from the standard and it turns out that we have to "dumb" down to 2.0 to get them to work. Not what I really call a solution.

I have a MBA new model and I am also having the same problem as most of you.

My Toshiba USB3.0 hard drive does not work at all with my MBA.

It turns on with a different light than the normal light.

This is unacceptable!!!

The system even crashed when I was trying to get it to work!

Finally only "dumbing down" to USB2.0 by using a microUSB cable the MBA sees the HD.

=/

This is my first Mac at all and so far I am having problems with external Projectors and external HD USB 3.0..

Very disapointing!!!!

I honestly think they are trying to kill USB 3. I went and bought a thunderbolt drive and it works perfectly. Twice as expensive and barely as fast as USB 3.0... Totally Apples MO these days fleece, fleece,fleece

Well, I finally got tired struggling with getting my WD passport working with the MBA, sold it and bought an Iomega Prestige 1TB USB 3.0 drive. Since that upgrade I haven't encountered any problems whatsoever. When looking at the system report, the drive correctly requests more power from the USB port (Currrent Required (mA): 900). I strongly believe the source of all this problems is on the drive side, the MBA just gives the device only that much power as the drive requests (224mA in the case of my old WD drive).

The MacBook Air/Pro Update 2 dPatch idn't fix the problem - my MacBook Air (mid-2012) still can't handle externally-powered USB 3 hard drives; I still need to use a powered USB 3 or USB 2 hub to use large (3TB drives) !!!!

no problems with WD 1TB USB3 bus-powered drives, but 3TB in powered external enclosure still u/a

will be sending another bug report to Apple ...

Same as here. My USB3.0 Toshiba Canvio drive (which is powered only by the bus), still does not work with the latest 2.0 update. Just tested it. (Only works as before: by using a 2.0 micro usb cable, which is not quite a real solution)

My USB 3 drive still does not work despite all the updates. It is a Lexar. I am wary of throwing money down the rain and trying a different make as mine is a 64 gb so not cheap.

I don't understand why these mbas are stilled billed as USB3 . Mine is not recognised. Why would I use a cable or a hub to down grade to USB 2? If so I would have bought a cheap USB 2 stick!

I've tried several USB3 drives as well, and in all cases, they do not work. Oddly enough, I got an Esata to USB3 converter cable, and plugged drives in, in some cases, the same drives that did not work directly with the usb3, and they DID work. And yes, these are all USB3 drives. ***?