Mac now totally unreliable for external hard drives

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Level 1

0 points

Mac now totally unreliable for external hard drives

Hi, I have both Mac Pro (Mavericks) and Mac Mini (Mountain Lion). Both have recently started to eject external hard drives,displaying the message 'Disk not ejected properly.' This is happening both when disks are in use and when idle. Really unacceptable and FUNDAMENTAL issue. Never had this before and since I do video work using exclusively external drives this is affecting my work massively. Any solution please Apple? (And please don't ask me to upgrade to Yosemite since every upgrade I have ever accepted has thrown up basic issues. For example, upgrade to Mavericks means my tablet pen displays beach ball instead of pointer. And given that many professional use Macs AND pen/tablet, bit of a poor show.

Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Apr 20, 2015 12:54 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 20, 2015 8:06 AM in response to linkpin

If your external drives can be powered with their own power supplies, that would be the first step to stability. If not, I suggest you replace them with ones that do have their own power.

Especially when sleep is involved, the Mac may drop power to Bus-powered devices when they are not expecting it, and many behave badly because of that.

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Answer 2

kahjot

Level 4

2,462 points

Apr 20, 2015 9:24 AM in response to linkpin

The disk ejection problem occurs with my powered enclosures as well, except in Snow Leopard, where it NEVER occurs. Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite all share this issue, which Apple apparently doesn't care enough about to fix. A solution for me has been to install an app called Mountain, which has so far prevented improper disk ejection in 10.8 through 10.10. The only major issue I've encountered is that it can interfere with some installer processes, so if you are installing an OS, you have to temporarily quit Mountain.

Drives with their own power supply are a safer choice. Also keep some spare cables on hand so that you can rule out bad cables as a cause of inappropriately dismounting drives. Using good quality enclosures that can be easily opened by the user is also a good idea: this allows you to determine whether a drive is at fault, or if it's a problem with an enclosure. This generally means staying away from brand name externals from WD and Seagate, etc., which are not easy to open, may have to be reformatted to work outside of the enclosures in which they are shipped, or have other issues, such as bundled software of dubious value.

http://appgineers.de/mountain/

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Answer 3

linkpin Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 20, 2015 9:28 AM in response to kahjot

Thanks for this. My problem is this never happened until recently. I take the point about bus powered drives, but this has also happened on powered ones.But - hey - this is basic stuff: just SHOULD NOT HAPPEN AT ALL. And never did until about a month ago. Mac is for professional users, many of whom - like me - will be creating large projects where external drives are unavoidable. What's the answer? Switch to Windows? I see no point in continual upgrades if basic functionality becomes impaired. An official answer from Apple might be nice.

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Answer 4

Apr 20, 2015 9:56 AM in response to linkpin

An official answer from Apple might be nice.

You will not get such an answer on this User-to-User forum. Apple makes no promise to read these forum postings, and does not reply here unless your post languishes unanswered for days.

You could use the Product Feedback page:

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

or (if you can reproduce the problem) taking your equipment to the genius Bar of an Apple-owned store (your appointment for an evaluation is free).

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