I have figured out the cause to my problem, but not the solution.
I have a small power strip that has my problem external drive, another external drive that exhibits no issues (different make), my iPad charger and a small fan. The small power strip is daisy chained to my main power strip.
I've noticed if there are any fluctuations of power, whether by something attached to the small power strip or my main one, my problem external drive is prone to give me an improper ejection warning.
For example, if I turn my fan off, it may cause the HD to improperly eject. If I disconnect my charging iPad, it may improperly eject. If my MBP goes to sleep, it may improperly eject.
The only real frustrating thing is that it doesn't happen every time, but more often than not, I can trigger the ejection warning.
So it does (at least in my case) seem to be some kind of power issue. It's not clear to me if it's OS X or the power brick that came with the external case. It's one of those proprietary bricks so I don't have another one to test out my theory.
Please note it didn't matter if the external drive was plugged into my powered USB hub or directly into my MBP.
No solution, just trying to add more data points, I guess.
By the way, I also updated to 10.8.5 and continued to have issues.
Message was edited by: debaire
Fixed misspelling