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Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

rscheffler
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

UPDATE 1: Switching the WD SN850X NVMe from a Sabrent USB-C enclosure to an Acasis TBU405 M1 enclosure and connecting it with a TB4 cable has resolved the drive disconnection problems explained below. Still don't know what specifically caused the drive disconnects and it still happens with my other WD SN850X drives in other copies of the same Sabrent USB-C enclosure. I ordered another TBU405 M1 and will probably get more. And yes the 3x faster file transfer speed is nice, too.

Thanks to everyone who helped troubleshoot this problem!

P.S. if ordered directly from Acasis they currently offer a $15 coupon for that enclosure, which drops it below $70 US.

UPDATE 2: With some trepidation I resumed making backups of projects to HDDs in a Sabrent 5-bay USB-3 external enclosure. I was uncertain if the problem with the NVMes in USB-3 enclosures would also happen with the 5-bay unit. So far over 1TB cloned and no disconnects of drives in the 5-bay. I've also continued to back up current projects to one of the 2TB WD SN850X SSDs in the same model Sabrent NVMe USB-3 enclosure I used for the 4TB drive. Transfers can go hundreds of GBs but will eventually disconnect. CCC reports that when the system mounts the drive again, usually within a few seconds, it's recognized as a USB-2 device and indeed will only transfer at ~40MB/s.

Barring anything new, it would appear the problem discussed here might be specific to NVMes, or WDSN850X NVMes, or the specific Sabrent USB-3 NVMe enclosure. Or a combination of these.

----------------------------------------------

After reading about considerably improved Adobe Enhance/Denoise speed in Lightroom because it's now finally using Apple's Neural Engines in M1/2/3 Macs with recent versions of OS 14 Sonoma, I updated my MBP 14" M1 Pro from 12.x to 14.5 a couple days ago.

And as promised, Denoise batching time was cut in half, so I was happy. And I immediately did an overnight 1100 image batch from files on an external 4TB NVME connected over USB 3.

But in the last day or so when running further Denoise batches, the system has had frequent external disk disconnects after ~30 or fewer files on the external disk have gone through Denoise. My system is M1 Pro, 10 core, 1TB 16GB. Because of the 1TB storage limitation, along with other reasons, I often edit/process larger projects on external NVME SSDs connected over USB (not TB) at 10Gb/s. All of my NVMEs are WD SN850X models. Two are 2TB and one is 4TB. I primarily use the 4TB. These are all in identical $30 Sabrent USB-C enclosures.

At first I thought maybe a bad cable or enclosure, so I swapped the cables and enclosures but the disconnects continued. I tried a 15" MBA M2 running macOS 14.4.1 copying 800GB from the problematic 4TB drive to one of the 2TBs via Carbon Copy Cloner. But the 2TB drive receiving the files disconnected several times during that copy process while the previously problematic 4TB drive never disconnected.

A quick online search revealed many similar complaints about external NVME SSDs disconnecting after updating to Sonoma. Troublingly, many of these complaints are many months old and early in the Sonoma release cycle. There were suggested solutions such as disabling disk sleep in System Settings. Mine was already disabled because that has been my default going back many OS versions. One potential solution was to install the Amphetamine app and use its Drive Alive feature to keep external drives constantly awake (while the OS was set to never let the disks sleep, apparently some enclosures override this, which the Drive Alive feature would circumvent). But that also did not resolve the disconnects.

It appears the disconnects happen during frequent or sustained writes to the external drive. Conversely, when reading files off the drive, such as opening a contact sheet of ~5000 images in Photo Mechanic and culling/tagging, or when the drive is the source when transferring a large batch to another drive via CCC, no disconnects happen.

I started to wonder if it was a thermal problem - the drive becoming too warm and the controller disconnecting it from the computer. While the NVME enclosures were on the warm side, they weren't warmer than in the past. But just in case it was some form of thermal throttling, I put an ice pack on the 4TB NVME, which brought the enclosure's temperature way down to about body temperature. But the disconnects continued. I suspected a connection to temperature because if I let the drive sit idle but connected to the computer for 30 minutes, Lightroom Denoise would process about 30-40 images before the drive would disconnect again. If Denoise was immediately resumed, it would do maybe another 8-10 files before the drive disconnected. And if Denise was again immediately resumed, it would only do 1-2 more files before the drive would disconnect.

Anyone with similar experiences and hopefully solutions?

Edited on Jul 08, 2024 at 11:42 AM · View previous versions

Jun 30, 2024 at 12:32 AM

schlotz
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

It appears the common denominator in all of your tests are the NVMe's themselves. However, in each case the connection point is usb-c. I too agree this sounds like it's temperature related in regard to writing large files. Any chance you have the capability to re-test using thunderbolt?

Jun 30, 2024 at 08:15 AM

rscheffler
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

Unfortunately I don't have any TB enclosures. I also haven't yet hooked up my Sabrent 5-bay HDD enclosure, which is where completed projects end up, so not yet sure if it's just the NVMEs that are acting strange. And everything I have, except an old TB 1 hub, is USB. I will try to find my TB 2-3 adapter and put the hub between an NVME and the computer. In the various discussions I browsed, some felt it was a USB issue. Some apparently had their NVME SSDs formatted as HFS+, which my understanding is not good with systems since 10.13 and the introduction of APFS. Reformatting the SSDs as APFS resolved some problems, but mine are all APFS (my HDDs however are all HFS+ as the understanding was that APFS didn't play well with spinners).

All three of the NVME drives in the USB enclosures generally worked fine up until a couple days ago in OS 12(*). It's really since the OS update that this has become frequent and extremely annoying. The weird thing though is that the first night LRC ran 1100 files on the 4TB NVME through Denoise without any disconnects. The next night, a similar batch failed 30 minutes after I went to bed. Checking Finder/system notifications and there were a ton of 'disk not ejected properly' notifications (the drive was reconnecting then eventually disconnecting again multiple times while idle).

While troubleshooting this yesterday, I checked the enclosures and one NVMEs itself with a temperature gun while they were idle and everything was in the 35-40˚C range. The actual NVME was in the 38-42˚C range. I'll try to repeat after putting a drive under load, but I checked at that time because it was disconnecting after very short 5-10 second Finder copies to or from it, totaling under 10GB each time.

* Around a month or so ago I did experience a few instances in quick succession where the 4TB NVME disconnected from the system, I think while exporting files on it from LRC to the MBP's internal drive. But the problem went away as quickly as it came. That said, it could have been an early sign of problems. But the recent disconnects have not been limited to just the 4TB drive. As mentioned in the first post, it also happened several times during an 800GB CCC backup from the 4TB drive to one of the 2TB NVMEs connected to another system running Sonoma. In those instances the 2TB drive consistently disconnected while the 4TB did not (I saw it happening in Finder).

For those more familiar with the OS, is there an error or systems log that will show why a drive was incorrectly disconnected? I had a quick browse in Console but didn't see anything obvious.

If anyone is using external USB SSDs with Sonoma and are NOT having problems, please leave a comment.

Thanks!

Jun 30, 2024 at 10:13 AM

rscheffler
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

One variable that occurred to me, however remote it might be, was that I updated LRC from 13.3.1 to 13.4 between the successful 1100 image Denoise batch and the following batch that failed after 30 minutes due to the external drive disconnecting.

Just now I rolled LRC back to 13.3.1 and started another Denoise batch from the 4TB NVME and it failed after 2 images. The drive had been unplugged for hours, at room temperature and otherwise idle for the few minutes it as attached before starting the batch. So looks like it wasn't LRC 13.4. It would have been too easy a fix!

In the meantime, I ordered an Acasis TBU405 enclosure from Amazon and hope to receive it Tuesday...

Jun 30, 2024 at 12:20 PM

schlotz
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

If you got the version that supports one NVMe without a fan it will probably be fine. However their dual SSD with a cooling fan is another story. Despite their add, the fan is far from silent and the pass through dual TB for daisy chain connectivity does not function as it should.

Jun 30, 2024 at 02:22 PM

jhapeman
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

Make sure there aren't any firmware updates for the WD drives as well. I know there were issues with these drives that caused problems with degraded write performance over time that were addressed by a firmware update.

You also will end up vastly preferring the TB enclosures anyway for the superior speed. I have a large number of external NVMe SSD drives--either Samsung or Sabrent--and none of them have any issue on any of the four Macs I connect them to on a regular basis, all running MacOS 14.

Jun 30, 2024 at 03:40 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

schlotz wrote:
If you got the version that supports one NVMe without a fan it will probably be fine. However their dual SSD with a cooling fan is another story. Despite their add, the fan is far from silent and the pass through dual TB for daisy chain connectivity does not function as it should.

Yeah, I recall your experience with the dual version with fan. It's the single stick passive cooling version about which Jeff (poster above) was enthusiastic.

jhapeman wrote:
Make sure there aren't any firmware updates for the WD drives as well. I know there were issues with these drives that caused problems with degraded write performance over time that were addressed by a firmware update.

Thanks, yes it would be good to check this but as is fairly typical in this realm, WD's Dashboard app for FW updates is Windows only. Unfortunately there are no such machines in this house or among people I know nearby on whom I could impose such a favor.

Jun 30, 2024 at 03:41 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

LBJ2 wrote:
Have you tried running Disk Utility => "First Aid" on your ext SSDs?

FWIW, I'm not experiencing any issues with my ext SSD drives on macOS Sonoma 14,5 and latest LRC 13,4 but also, I don't run multi-hour processes at a time on my ext SSDs which might make a difference.

Thanks. The two 2TB drives passed Disk Utility's First Aid check. There was some weirdness with the 4TB drive. DU failed to complete its scan. I've experienced strange behavior with DU in the past, like when it would fail to initialize/format a new drive, so was skeptical. But this drive has also had so many disconnects it's possible something degraded and actually required repair. I restarted the computer and rescanned the 4TB stick swapped into one of the USB enclosures used by a 2TB stick. It passed. Put it back in the enclosure it has had since I bought it and it passed again. So not sure what to make of it unless First Aid actually did modify something the first time, even though it apparently couldn't complete the scan.

Running Denoise batches now to see how things go...

Got through about 300 files and the drive disconnected. That was a lot better than the last couple days where it might only do 30-40 and even less. Ran DU and this is what it reported:

error: (oid 0x34f02e) apfs_extentref: btn: dev_read_finish(3469358, 1): Input/output error
Extent ref tree is invalid.
The volume /dev/rdisk5s1 with UUID 35999029-0248-499B-8E72-963836FBF75F was found to be corrupt and cannot be repaired.
Verifying allocated space.
error: error (6) reading spaceman IP bitmap block at index 0, addr 0x6e83
error: (oid 0x6f8e) sm_ip: dev_read_finish(28558, 1): Input/output error
Space Verification failed.
The volume /dev/rdisk5s1 with UUID 35999029-0248-499B-8E72-963836FBF75F could not be verified completely.
File system check exit code is 8.
Restoring the original state found as unmounted.
File system verify or repair failed. : (-69845)

I rebooted the computer and ran DU again and it reported the volume as OK. The only thing that was not OK was that DU could not unmount the volume, which I could do manually in Finder. Once it was unmounted DU reported the following:

Checking file system and repairing if necessary and if possible.
Volume is already unmounted.
Performing fsck_apfs -y -x /dev/rdisk5s1
Checking the container superblock.
Checking the checkpoint with transaction ID 13308.
Checking the space manager.
Checking the space manager free queue trees.
Checking the object map.
Checking volume /dev/rdisk5s1.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
Checking the object map.
Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
Checking the snapshot metadata.
Checking the document ID tree.
Checking the fsroot tree.
Checking the extent ref tree.
Verifying volume object map space.
Verifying allocated space.
The volume /dev/rdisk5s1 with UUID 35999029-0248-499B-8E72-963836FBF75F appears to be OK.
File system check exit code is 0.
Restoring the original state found as unmounted.

Operation successful.

DU left the volume unmounted. I mounted it via DU then ran First Aid again. This time DU was able to unmount and run its check, which again was OK:

Running First Aid on “NVME-WD-SN850X-4TB-1” (disk5s1)

Checking file system and repairing if necessary and if possible.
Volume was successfully unmounted.
Performing fsck_apfs -y -x /dev/rdisk5s1
Checking the container superblock.
Checking the checkpoint with transaction ID 13314.
Checking the space manager.
Checking the space manager free queue trees.
Checking the object map.
Checking volume /dev/rdisk5s1.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
Checking the object map.
Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
Checking the snapshot metadata.
Checking the document ID tree.
Checking the fsroot tree.
Checking the extent ref tree.
Verifying volume object map space.
Verifying allocated space.
The volume /dev/rdisk5s1 with UUID 35999029-0248-499B-8E72-963836FBF75F appears to be OK.
File system check exit code is 0.
Restoring the original state found as mounted.

Operation successful.

Jun 30, 2024 at 05:59 PM

jhapeman
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

rscheffler wrote:
Yeah, I recall your experience with the dual version with fan. It's the single stick passive cooling version about which Jeff (poster above) was enthusiastic.

Thanks, yes it would be good to check this but as is fairly typical in this realm, WD's Dashboard app for FW updates is Windows only. Unfortunately there are no such machines in this house or among people I know nearby on whom I could impose such a favor.

You should be able to at least see the firmware version using System Report and then locating the drive in the device tree. If it needs the update then...you have to find a Windows PC to do it.

Jun 30, 2024 at 06:19 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

Jeff, I had a quick look in System Report and can only find info about the enclosure. Anything about the actual drive appears to be fairly generic. Couldn't see anything about the drive's firmware version. If you have the chance, could you check one of your external NVMEs and screen grab where I should look for that info? Thanks!

I hooked up my old TB1 dock/hub via an Apple TB2-3 adapter, both of which I have used to connect an older 5-bay USB enclosure to this system back on OS 12. I connected the 4TB NVME via a quality USB-A to C cable and the enclosure's activity light slowly pulsed on and off continuously, but the volume did not mount in Finder or even appear in DU. I connected one of the 2TB NVMEs and it mounted but then disconnected about 5 minutes later after sitting idle the whole time. Its activity light switched from constant to pulsing on and off slowly like the 4TB drive. It seems this old TB option won't work and I'll wait for the Acasis enclosure.

In the meantime, the 4TB connected directly to the MBP appeared correctly in Finder. I ran a Denoise batch but the drive disconnected after 27 files. It reappeared and I tried again but it disconnected again without processing any additional files. I checked the enclosure temperature with an IR thermometer and the warmest spot was 37˚C. Rather than run DU on it, I rebooted the MBP, mounted the 4TB NVME and then ran DU, which reported it as operating normally. Running another Denoise batch now and about 50-60 files in, the warmest point on the enclosure is 43˚C.

Something weird just happened. In Finder I accessed the 4TB volume to check files and the volume suddenly disconnected, but LRC didn't cancel the batch and pop up the usual warning that X number of files were not processed. I waited for it to do so, meanwhile the gallery thumbnails showed that the original files were missing. But the drive reconnected, LRC recognized it was back and continued uninterrupted with the Denoise batch. I don't think I've ever seen this happen before with a disconnect. Maybe it was just coincidental timing, that whatever file at that moment being denoised was fully in memory and the volume reappeared in time to write out the DNG?

I left the computer to do something else and when I came back 30 minutes later the batch had stopped because of a disconnect after 120 files were processed. I started another batch and it did 19 files before disconnecting again. Feels like going around in circles here.

Jun 30, 2024 at 08:22 PM

jhapeman
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

rscheffler wrote:
Jeff, I had a quick look in System Report and can only find info about the enclosure. Anything about the actual drive appears to be fairly generic. Couldn't see anything about the drive's firmware version. If you have the chance, could you check one of your external NVMEs and screen grab where I should look for that info? Thanks!

I hooked up my old TB1 dock/hub via an Apple TB2-3 adapter, both of which I have used to connect an older 5-bay USB enclosure to this system back on OS 12. I connected the 4TB NVME via a quality USB-A to...Show more →

I don't know if it will show up with a USB drive--I think it will--but it should be under NVMExpress. Find the drive and then look at the details.

Jun 30, 2024 at 10:51 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

Thanks. Only the internal drive appears in the NVME section. Probably because the external is connected via USB. I'll try again when I have the Acasis TB enclosure.

Jun 30, 2024 at 11:14 PM

mcbroomf
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

Just an FYI, I have one of the 4TB WD SN850X drives in an Acasis TB enclosure. I bought it last year and it's on firmware 624311WD. I'm traveling with my MBP so no access to my Windows machine and the WD website doesn't (so far as I can tell) show the current FW until you run the (Win) app. I'm not having disconnect errors but only run backups to the Acasis/WD from a different drive. It takes 30 mins or so.

Revision: 624311WD
Serial Number: 23010R801920

Jul 01, 2024 at 09:23 AM

rscheffler
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

Thanks. Last evening Denoise batches generally went smoother, but still with batching failures after 50-100 files. Initially after each disconnect I rebooted the MBP but stopped doing that after it didn't appear to result in significantly longer batch runs. For whatever reason, the last batch of ~200 had no batching failures.

A couple things I noticed: LRC appears to pull the file into memory to run Enhance/Denoise and only accesses the drive when reading the original raw and writing the DNG, which is logical. Occasionally disconnects happened where the drive would almost immediately reconnect while LRC was processing a file but not reading or writing to the drive, and LRC would continue with the batch as if nothing happened. I only noticed this because I was simultaneously using Photo Mechanic to tag/cull images and whenever there was a drive disconnect, even if only briefly, the contact sheet would immediately disappear, which is logical (it also appeared I would lose the last couple tags applied to files in PM, suggesting it may not be immediately writing this to files, or something in the system might be bottlenecking IO with the drive which 'builds up' before it finally disconnects). I also had an instance when as soon as I started browsing the drive in Finder, it disconnected. So I generally avoided doing this, but not sure if it made any difference.

As I mentioned earlier, the disconnects aren't only happening with the 4TB drive. I use one of the 2TB drives as the receiving drive when backing up the 4TB with Carbon Copy Cloner. Sometimes the 2TB drive disconnects partway through the back up. Or, right at the end of the back up it disconnects and CCC doesn't report an error. But when I reconnect the drive and run the back up again, it still transfers some files. In these instances the 4TB source drive does not disconnect. This returns to one of my earlier observations that it appears to be writes rather than reads causing the disconnects. But I have had a drive disconnect immediately after it finished copying files to the MBP...

At one point I noticed that Denoise batches where I used a setting other than the 50% default appeared to never disconnect. So for files I would normally batch at 50%, I chose another value, such as 55%. And initially it seemed to be working, but then after ~100 files, it disconnected. Why or even if it would be connected to this is extremely unclear and it is probably just a coincidence, but as the only setting change between various batches, I looked into it anyway.

Right now my feeling is something with OS 14 changed compared to 12 (I skipped 13) and either there is an incompatibility with the WD NVMEs (or older FW versions), with the Sabrent USB-C enclosures or with USB enclosures in general. But because others here aren't reporting widespread USB problems (though there are numerous reports on the Apple support forums, Reddit, etc.), I'm hoping the Acasis TB enclosure will resolve the problem I'm having.

Jul 01, 2024 at 10:55 AM

jhapeman
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

rscheffler wrote:
Thanks. Last evening Denoise batches generally went smoother, but still with batching failures after 50-100 files. Initially after each disconnect I rebooted the MBP but stopped doing that after it didn't appear to result in significantly longer batch runs. For whatever reason, the last batch of ~200 had no batching failures.

A couple things I noticed: LRC appears to pull the file into memory to run Enhance/Denoise and only accesses the drive when reading the original raw and writing the DNG, which is logical. Occasionally disconnects happened where the drive would almost immediately reconnect while LRC was processing a file but not reading or writing to the drive, and LRC would continue with the batch as if nothing happened. I only noticed this because I was simultaneously using Photo Mechanic to tag/cull images and whenever there was a drive disconnect, even if only briefly, the contact sheet would immediately disappear, which is logical (it also appeared I would lose the last couple tags applied to files in PM, suggesting it may not be immediately writing this to files, or something in the system might be bottlenecking IO with the drive which 'builds up' before it finally disconnects). I also had an instance when as soon as I started browsing the drive in Finder, it disconnected. So I generally avoided doing this, but not sure if it made any difference.

As I mentioned earlier, the disconnects aren't only happening with the 4TB drive. I use one of the 2TB drives as the receiving drive when backing up the 4TB with Carbon Copy Cloner. Sometimes the 2TB drive disconnects partway through the back up. Or, right at the end of the back up it disconnects and CCC doesn't report an error. But when I reconnect the drive and run the back up again, it still transfers some files. In these instances the 4TB source drive does not disconnect. This returns to one of my earlier observations that it appears to be writes rather than reads causing the disconnects. But I have had a drive disconnect immediately after it finished copying files to the MBP...

At one point I noticed that Denoise batches where I used a setting other than the 50% default appeared to never disconnect. So for files I would normally batch at 50%, I chose another value, such as 55%. And initially it seemed to be working, but then after ~100 files, it disconnected. Why or even if it would be connected to this is extremely unclear and it is probably just a coincidence, but as the only setting change between various batches, I looked into it anyway.

Right now my feeling is something with OS 14 changed compared to 12 (I skipped 13) and either there is an incompatibility with the WD NVMEs (or older FW versions), with the Sabrent USB-C enclosures or with USB enclosures in general. But because others here aren't reporting widespread USB problems (though there are numerous reports on the Apple support forums, Reddit, etc.), I'm hoping the Acasis TB enclosure will resolve the problem I'm having....Show more →

I know that 13.x had a lot of issues with USB disconnects due to sleep issues but my recollection is that was mostly addressed in 14.x which has been much better than 13.x in my experience. There were USB hub issues with 14.4 and I'm not sure they are fixed in 14.5. Are you using a hub in between the drives and the Mac?

Jul 01, 2024 at 11:53 AM

galenapass
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

rscheffler wrote:
After reading about considerably improved Adobe Enhance/Denoise speed in Lightroom because it's now finally using Apple's Neural Engines in M1/2/3 Macs with recent versions of OS 14 Sonoma, I updated my MBP 14" M1 Pro from 12.x to 14.5 a couple days ago.

And as promised, Denoise batching time was cut in half, so I was happy. And I immediately did an overnight 1100 image batch from files on an external 4TB NVME connected over USB 3.

But in the last day or so when running further Denoise batches, the system has had frequent external disk disconnects after ~30 or fewer files on the external disk have gone through Denoise. My system is M1 Pro, 10 core, 1TB 16GB. Because of the 1TB storage limitation, along with other reasons, I often edit/process larger projects on external NVME SSDs connected over USB (not TB) at 10Gb/s. All of my NVMEs are WD SN850X models. Two are 2TB and one is 4TB. I primarily use the 4TB. These are all in identical $30 Sabrent USB-C enclosures.

At first I thought maybe a bad cable or enclosure, so I swapped the cables and enclosures but the disconnects continued. I tried a 15" MBA M2 running macOS 14.4.1 copying 800GB from the problematic 4TB drive to one of the 2TBs via Carbon Copy Cloner. But the 2TB drive receiving the files disconnected several times during that copy process while the previously problematic 4TB drive never disconnected.

A quick online search revealed many similar complaints about external NVME SSDs disconnecting after updating to Sonoma. Troublingly, many of these complaints are many months old and early in the Sonoma release cycle. There were suggested solutions such as disabling disk sleep in System Settings. Mine was already disabled because that has been my default going back many OS versions. One potential solution was to install the Amphetamine app and use its Drive Alive feature to keep external drives constantly awake (while the OS was set to never let the disks sleep, apparently some enclosures override this, which the Drive Alive feature would circumvent). But that also did not resolve the disconnects.

It appears the disconnects happen during frequent or sustained writes to the external drive. Conversely, when reading files off the drive, such as opening a contact sheet of ~5000 images in Photo Mechanic and culling/tagging, or when the drive is the source when transferring a large batch to another drive via CCC, no disconnects happen.

I started to wonder if it was a thermal problem - the drive becoming too warm and the controller disconnecting it from the computer. While the NVME enclosures were on the warm side, they weren't warmer than in the past. But just in case it was some form of thermal throttling, I put an ice pack on the 4TB NVME, which brought the enclosure's temperature way down to about body temperature. But the disconnects continued. I suspected a connection to temperature because if I let the drive sit idle but connected to the computer for 30 minutes, Lightroom Denoise would process about 30-40 images before the drive would disconnect again. If Denoise was immediately resumed, it would do maybe another 8-10 files before the drive disconnected. And if Denise was again immediately resumed, it would only do 1-2 more files before the drive would disconnect.

Anyone with similar experiences and hopefully solutions?
...Show more →

Yes. I went through some of the steps you mentioned above including putting the drive on ice to cool it down. I am using SABRENT USB 3.2 10Gbps Type C Tool Free Enclosure for M.2 PCIe NVMe and SATA SSDs (EC-SNVE) and WD_BLACK 4TB SN850X NVMe Internal Gaming SSD Solid State Drive - Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280, Up to 7,300 MB/s - WDS400T2X0E. I am not using a hub.

All of the sudden, after "upgrading" my OS, I was getting disconnects from my M1 Mac Studio for both my primary NVMe drive and the backup. I managed to get a backup NVMe to work but only after going to the Apple store and buying an official Belkin lightning cable from the store. Right now I am in a stable situation, but my first priority is to upload my whole picture catalog to Egnyte for cloud storage. When I finish that, I will go back and start trouble shooting this further but first I am getting the cloud backup finished which has been on my todo list for quite some time. I suspect that the OS upgrade has something to do with it, but I am confused why a new cable seems to have solved the issue for at least one of NVMe drives. Sorry, I am not much help right now. More to come...

Jul 01, 2024 at 12:21 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

@galenapass - Actually that might be helpful. I think we're using the same Sabrent enclosure and drives. I only swapped around the exact same cable from my other identical Sabrent enclosures. I did not think to try a different brand, high quality cable.

jhapeman wrote:
I know that 13.x had a lot of issues with USB disconnects due to sleep issues but my recollection is that was mostly addressed in 14.x which has been much better than 13.x in my experience. There were USB hub issues with 14.4 and I'm not sure they are fixed in 14.5. Are you using a hub in between the drives and the Mac?

Thanks. No hub. From the various searches I did, some recommended using the Amphetamine app's Drive Alive feature to keep drives awake. It allows you to specify how often it 'pings' the drive with a small read/write. I tried it and it didn't make a difference. Some suggested resetting the SMC, etc. I have not tried that.

Jul 01, 2024 at 11:51 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

Received the Acasis TBU405 M1 today (M1 is the tool-less version). First thing I did was use its TB4 cable in place of the Sabrent-supplied USB-C cable that shipped with the Sabrent USB NVME enclosures I'm using with my three WD SN850X drives. I initiated a Denoise batch and things looked good about 300 images into the process, but eventually there was another drive disconnect that interrupted the process. Re-initiated the batch and it only processed another four before the drive disconnected again. Rebooted, started the batch and only got another two. Weird, but consistent for what I've experienced over the past week since jumping from macOS 12.x to 14.5.

Swapped the 4TB drive into the Acasis enclosure and just completed a 313 image Denoise batch in 70 minutes without interruption!

Big test will be to run another 1000+ overnight. Fingers crossed!! Haha.

Question about the thermal pads supplied by Acasis: I used both the 0.5mm and 1mm pads and it didn't appear they're squeezed down by the cover, therefore not sure if they're actually making contact with the enclosure. But at the end of the last batch the enclosure was at most 45˚C, which was inline with my readings of the Sabrent USB enclosure.

While I'll be happy if this solves my immediate workflow disruptions, it obviously does not fix whatever is wrong with either USB and macOS 14, the Sabrent NVME enclosures and macOS 14, or the WD SN850X and macOS 14. Given that so far the drive has worked with the Acasis, I'm leaning towards some kind of USB issue. But I could be totally wrong and perhaps it's just a side effect of some other problem... And I still haven't connected my Sabrent 5-bay USB enclosure since the OS update, so the drama might not yet be over!

jhapeman wrote:
I don't know if it will show up with a USB drive--I think it will--but it should be under NVMExpress. Find the drive and then look at the details.

Yes, with the Acasis enclosure over TB I'm now able to access more info about the WD drive via the NVME option in System Information:

Model: WD_BLACK SN850X 4000GB
Revision: 624361WD

Not sure if it's current FW but if it keeps working in the Acasis enclosure I won't try to update it.

Jul 02, 2024 at 09:05 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

Just a follow up that the WD SN850X NVMe in the Acasis TBU405 M1 enclosure appears to be working without disconnects after multiple very large Denoise batches. Of course this doesn't fix the original problem with the USB enclosure I was using, nor pinpoint the cause of the problem. But at least I'm able to get my workflow back up to speed again.

And speaking of speed, indeed having almost 3GB/s file transfers between the computer and the drive in this enclosure is an added bonus.

Thanks to everyone who helped troubleshoot this problem!

P.S. if ordered directly from Acasis, they currently offer a $15 coupon for this enclosure, which drops it to the $70 US range.

Jul 04, 2024 at 09:08 AM

lsquare
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Help - macOS 14 Sonoma - frequent external disk disconnections

rscheffler wrote:
Unfortunately I don't have any TB enclosures. I also haven't yet hooked up my Sabrent 5-bay HDD enclosure, which is where completed projects end up, so not yet sure if it's just the NVMEs that are acting strange. And everything I have, except an old TB 1 hub, is USB. I will try to find my TB 2-3 adapter and put the hub between an NVME and the computer. In the various discussions I browsed, some felt it was a USB issue. Some apparently had their NVME SSDs formatted as HFS+, which my understanding is not good with systems since 10.13 and the introduction of APFS. Reformatting the SSDs as APFS resolved some problems, but mine are all APFS (my HDDs however are all HFS+ as the understanding was that APFS didn't play well with spinners).

All three of the NVME drives in the USB enclosures generally worked fine up until a couple days ago in OS 12(*). It's really since the OS update that this has become frequent and extremely annoying. The weird thing though is that the first night LRC ran 1100 files on the 4TB NVME through Denoise without any disconnects. The next night, a similar batch failed 30 minutes after I went to bed. Checking Finder/system notifications and there were a ton of 'disk not ejected properly' notifications (the drive was reconnecting then eventually disconnecting again multiple times while idle).

While troubleshooting this yesterday, I checked the enclosures and one NVMEs itself with a temperature gun while they were idle and everything was in the 35-40˚C range. The actual NVME was in the 38-42˚C range. I'll try to repeat after putting a drive under load, but I checked at that time because it was disconnecting after very short 5-10 second Finder copies to or from it, totaling under 10GB each time.

* Around a month or so ago I did experience a few instances in quick succession where the 4TB NVME disconnected from the system, I think while exporting files on it from LRC to the MBP's internal drive. But the problem went away as quickly as it came. That said, it could have been an early sign of problems. But the recent disconnects have not been limited to just the 4TB drive. As mentioned in the first post, it also happened several times during an 800GB CCC backup from the 4TB drive to one of the 2TB NVMEs connected to another system running Sonoma. In those instances the 2TB drive consistently disconnected while the 4TB did not (I saw it happening in Finder).

For those more familiar with the OS, is there an error or systems log that will show why a drive was incorrectly disconnected? I had a quick browse in Console but didn't see anything obvious.

If anyone is using external USB SSDs with Sonoma and are NOT having problems, please leave a comment.

Thanks!...Show more →

Is Sabrent a reputable brand? Why didn't you buy a NAS, but instead using what appears to be a Sabrent 5-bay DAS.

Jul 05, 2024 at 03:15 PM

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