External hard drive ejects on sleep

Just bought an iMac late 2012, i7. Using an external Startech.com Satadock for 2 sata drives, connected by USB 3.0 directly to iMac. In the beginning i had allot of random disconnects, also while woking on the computer. Now, the drives only seem to disconnect while mac goes to sleep. Things I did:

- Reset SMC

- While using Jettison the drive indeed gets removed the 'safe' way before entering sleep. When activating the mac, drive doesn't connect automatically, still have to switch the dock on/off. (Prevents the hard disconnects though!)

I'll try the other tips written above and will update....

Anyone having any good luck yet??

Gr, Mark

Edit: Hey all, just tried the possible solutions of macbirdy and BrooklynAL. None of those worked for me, still disconnects after sleep....

I am re-posting my comments since I was advised that I was not permitted to make reference to developers preview and hence my comment(s) was (were) "removed", therefore, these comments are focused on all current released software 10.8.4 or earlier:

There is no lasting solution to the problem that I have found. I tried the following all to no avail:

1. repaired User (CMD+R) and main HD permissions files
2. reset NVRAM and SMC
3. Repaired HD with CMD+R but HD did not appear to be corrupted
4. Unchecked the "put the disk to sleep when possible".....though that made the least sense since that is only useful for the main hard drive
5. Deleted User/Library/Cache and HD/Library/Cache
6. Ejected all external disks manually and then shut off the power to each hard drive for a couple of minutes then reconnected them to the computer and the Belkin hub...….. connected all external HD to both computer and Belkin Hub
7. Replaced HD cables no improvement
8. Established an Admin User Account--still occurred
9. Safe Boot Note this happens on both ML 10.8.4 on late 2012 iMac but not on my mid 2010 iMac.
10. Lastly, I performed a cleans install of 10.8.4 on the 30th of July, and one of my hard drive(s) ejected today the 3rd of August after waking the computer from sleep........

I am including this description of what I did to save people the time.

One of the Apple Care senior advisors had this to say.......... "I did receive some information on the issue we are having with the external hard drives. Starting with the 2012 iMac there has been a change to the sleep function. The 2012 iMac enters into a very low power hibernate mode. The reason the external drives are ejected intermittently is because the drives do not have firmware that can sense the low power state. Also the low power state is not automatically entered at each sleep cycle. The 2010 iMac does not achieve this lower power state and therefore the drives will have no problem staying connected to this iMac. We may want to contact the external hard drive manufacturer for firmware updates that can detect the lower power hibernate mode on the 2012 iMac. I did notice in our notes here that the issue did not occur in the test user. After reviewing with the engineering department this issue may still return because very low power hibernate mode with 2012 iMac. Please let me know if you have any questions so I can further assist you."

I contacted Western Digital and they indicated there is no available firmware update for WD essential desktop drives................ As you might imagine I am very disappointed with the questionable performance of the late 2012, 27 inch iMac that cost with upgrades nearly $3000. To make matters worse the "Apple Care senior advisor" is not even returning my e-mails to explore other possible solutions....I completely wasted the additional money on the extended Apple Care support....my bad.

Thx for the write-up. Two quick points about the scope of the problem

1. If the problem were merely hard drives ejecting on sleep it would be just an annoyance. My experience (and others) is the loss of data on the ejected drive. This happens not every time but when it does it truly is a big deal.

2. The problem is not just b/c some newer Macs have low power states when hibernating. I have the problem with a 13" mid 2009 MacBook Pro.

Given the array of Macs and hard drive setups, it seems we have an OS problem.

Al from DC

Arsdc

I had several comments removed but I had (and have) to concede that the explanation provided by the senior advisor regarding low power state was not born out by several (removed) comments posted in this forum. In another post that was "removed" I stated that after submitting my log files as a DMG that the senior advisor indicated the engineers indicated that the problem was related to two (2) possible programs RCDefaults and/or MenuMeters. I systematically deleted both programs but the hard drive ejection occurred after the "problem" programs were deleted. Note, though, that I have both these programs with with several variations of OS X (SL, Lion and ML) on my 2010 27 inch iMac without any issues. In fact, I have three variations of ML on the 2010 iMac that perform flawlessly.

I want to make it clear to the moderator of this forum, that deleted several of my comments, is that I am attempting to help other people plagued with this issue and at the same time this identified "problem" should be viewed by the moderator and/or Apple as an opportunity to improve an operating system that I, and many of the people posting in this forum, are partial to. Just look at the number of views this topic has had in excess of 42,000......clearly, many.......many.......are affected.

Arsdc............AL.......... your loss of of data, and the loss of data by others, is truly troubling.......

It appears you're not allowed to view what you requested. You might contact your administrator if you think this is a mistake.

Hey what's going on here? Why my comment/response was revomed from this thread by "the moderator"...? I would appreciate an explanation... I am quite sure I did not said something wrong... and I did not know such message could be censored witout any comments/advice to it's author!

Regards,

Eric

Message was edited by: FunkyRico

I received the same reply from the moderator and was blocked from the website because in some of the posts I made reference to an OS X operating system that has not been officially released yet. There was nothing offensive or inappropriate about my comments’ but they clearly were deemed undesirable. Again, I provided analysis of the problem by way of solutions that I attempted to help myself and others brainstorm this persistent operating system and/or hardware flaw. My impression, probably naive, was that this forums purpose was to explore solutions and help with unresolved issues/problems related to OS X operating systems.

If Monday rolls around and these comments are again removed it appears that Apple has a bigger problem then simply a problem piece of software and/or hardware that is suboptimal.

I've noticed there is 'smaller' thread about the same issue:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4250547?answerId=22554527022#22554527022

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3119273?answerId=22520201022#22520201022

have you all reported a feedback to apple? I did...

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Go to System preference---Energy Saver---disable put HDD sleep whenever possible.

Now your HDD will not disconnect while system go in sleep mode.

It would be great if this was a solution, but it is not. If you look back through this long thread you will see the limited utility of changing this setting.

Hi there folks,

While surfing the mac forums lately I've seen a lot of people having difficulties with external storage devices not being detected, and many, being dismounted or self-ejecting causing loss or damage of data. I've also read of problems pertaining to old data not being accessible on the new drive. This being said, I've had these same issues recently with my Mac. Take a deep breath, all is well. It really isn't your Mac. After reading so many forum posts I've decided to share some of my experiences that have answered questions and resolved these problems for me.

Here are some solutions for most of the folks I'm sure, who are having problems with self-dismount/eject:

I'm running a 2013 Macbook Pro Retina with OSX 10.8.4 Mountain Lion.

For those that just can't get their drives recognized or to show in 'Finder':

I'll start with proper formatting. Be sure your new drive has been formatted as 'Mac OS Extended (journaled)' and that the partition map scheme is 'GUID Partition Table.' Even though your drive should have come formatted for your Mac 'out of the box', sometimes they just don't get it right.

An important factor worth mentioning is to be sure you're running your external storage device with the most recent firmware. Just because that shiny new drive came fresh out of the factory sealed box, doesn't mean you have the latest firmware. Keeping your firmware up to date is a most definite necessity as each and every day brings us new features and function in our operating systems, that sometimes changes how hardware will behave and does indeed require Firmware Updates from the manufacturers.

Ensure your USB/Firewire/Thunderbolt connections are functioning properly; this is especially important if you are using an expandable multi-port hub with your system. Via 'System Report' pull up 'Hardware' and 'USB', 'Firewire', 'Thunderbolt' (whichever applies). Look at the data and be certain everything is being found, and found correctly. If you see something that is not being found, or is being found incorrectly (USB 3.0 connection being found as a USB 2.0 as an example) be certain of a couple of things:

Check that your power for all of your devices are connected (external drive power, power for your hub, etc). You may have been using your hub passively running other low consumption devices on it with line level voltage from your computer with no problems. However, your hub must have power to run a device of this type. Another possibility is that your cable may be damaged, or you're plugged into a USB hub or USB port on your computer that only supports USB 2.0.

For everyone who suffers with "improper eject":

The first thing I discovered when I had problems with other external drives dismounting is that power management in newer Macs use a VERY LOW POWER sleep mode, almost to hibernation levels. Most external drives can only detect a connection to a computer when the computer is sending a line level signal via connection cable. When newer macs enter sleep mode the power is beneath the threshold level the external devices are capable of sensing. Therefore, when the computer sleeps, the drive thinks the computer is off and puts itself to sleep causing improper dismount or self-eject, and of course generating the message that the device has been improperly ejected. Yes, this can damage files. What is required when using these devices, is to either eject the drive manually through the Finder Window, and then let your computer sleep at will, or adjust your power management setting in the "Energy Saver" tab to "NEVER" for the 'Computer Sleep' setting. Also in the same Energy Saver window, be certain to UNCHECK 'Put hard disks to sleep whenever possible," and UNCHECK 'Enable Power Nap.'

Many external drives have there own power management features as well, that can be set from its own settings window and these operate independently of OSX. If these devices are set for a sleep mode before OSX sleeps, it will cause itself to eject improperly from the OS and you will get error messages and possibly corrupt data, and, or your back up. Where these devices offer power management settings, it is advisable to disable any sleep settings. Until all of the manufacturers catch up with ultra low power connection discovery, it is highly recommended that you manually eject your drive through OSX Finder prior to any time you plan to let your computer sleep, or before you turn it off. This should be rule of thumb for any external storage device connected to a Mac. I personally leave my computer on full time during the day with external drives ready at the helm. I have had ZERO issues since discovering these things.

This said, some users will have their external drives plugged into a power strip separate from their computer; and I know people who do this; they will turn off the power strip when shutting down the computer; the computer may not be ready and when the power to the drive is shut down...voila, improper eject.

Another item that contributes to these issues is energy preference settings being stored by other programs for your old storage device, perhaps now accessing your new drive imposing obsolete, and conflicting settings. When I first experienced some of this behavior at discussion, I had replaced my 2 TB WD MyBook Studio for Mac with a 4TB Seagate Backup Plus for Mac drive. The WD has power management options and when set were also being stored by Time Machine. The answer is to delete the offending file. I deleted the preference file for Time Machine (not to worry, the Mac makes a new one ;-)), by doing the following:

1) Turn off Time Machine via Time Machine Preferences window.

2) Open the 'Finder' window.

3) Eject External Hard Drive via 'Finder' window.

4) Click on Macintosh HD.

5) Click on Library.

6) Click on Preferences.

7) Locate the file named 'com.apple.TimeMachine.plist' and DELETE it (Move to Trash).

8) Restart your computer

Now for another one: Once your drive is installed successfully and is functioning properly, if you've had a problem with Time Machine not being able to access your backup data, when you know the data is there and you can see your backup folders plain as day, an item that may warrant your attention here is a permission reset if you've moved data from the old storage device to the new one:

1) Reboot and hold Command + R

2) Terminal and type 'resetpassword' (no spaces)

3) Select main drive at top of dialogue box that appears, then select 'reset permissions/ACL at the bottom of the box.

4) Reboot computer.

5) Open 'Disk Utility' in Apps and reset main hard drive permissions.

6) Reboot computer.

This process resets the user permissions folder. One way to avoid going through all of this is to use your 'Migration Tool' found in your Apps folder INSTEAD of the old copy and past from the old to the new.

This one probably goes without saying; however, I've read many, many forum complaints that the backup software that came with their drive either won't install or doesn't function properly on their mac. USE TIME MACHINE. Most storage device Manufacturers even specify to use Time Machine instead of their own software. The major players in the field don't even make BackUp software for Mac. They'll format the drive for Mac (in most cases :-/ ) but that's it. There is a reason for this; no other backup software comes close to keeping your files as safe and secure as they will be with APPLE Time Machine.

Hope this helps some people.

Happy computing!

FWIW, I've been following this thread for ever (posted in it too if I remember correctly). Tried everything suggested to no avail.

Ended up buying a new USB3 2.5 inch external drive for my MacBook Air today. So far, not a single rogue disconnect.

Fingers crossed...

I have recently made a few observations that may be useful. Firstly, I have two hard drives that have never ejected after waking from sleep. One is a 120GB WD and the other is a 120GB LaCie SSD. Both these drives are not partitioned as well. The WD drive is attached to the computer via the Belkin 2.0 USB hub and the LaCie SSD (USB 3.0) is connected directly to the back of the iMac. I lost the original cable for the WD drive and I am using a better quality 2.0 USB/Mini cable. So is the partitioning that is the problem or is it the quality of the cables? I have tried changing the cables previously with low cost generic cables but this time I replace the cables with: Monoprice 3ft Gold Plated 28/24AWG USB 2.0 A Male to 5pin mini-B Male Cable w/Ferrite Core (very reasonably priced ~ $2.96/cable).

I am hoping the gold plating and the ferrite core helps “wake” the external drives more quickly so the computer doesn't think they have been disconnected. I replaced the cables on the 23^rd of August, and for 7 days have not experienced external hard drive ejection.

I have not shut the computer for one week and repeatedly put the iMac to sleep (see stats below). Though, any perceived “solution” would require at least of month without external hard drive ejection before any claim of victory can honestly be made. I will post if the cables was in fact a “solution”. Let me be clear, the problem we are collectively having may not be the same problem so this may or may not help your situation.

Stats (Sleep/Wake cycles):

23 August sleep/wake X6

24 August sleep/wake X8

25 August sleep/wake X5

26 August sleep/wake X6

27 August sleep/wake X4

28 August sleep/wake X5

29 August sleep/wake X6

30 August sleep/wake X5

How about alink to those cables?

I wasn't sure the moderator would allow that but here goes anyway:

Wiil repost