2018 Macbook Pros Thunderbolt issue with external drives

[zombat119]

Hi,

Can anyone confirm their Thunderbolt ports on the right side of their 2018 Macbook or Mbp works like it should?

I tried with multiple external drives. I went to the apple shop, together with one of the guys from the genius bar, we tried on multiple machines. Seems to work on non t2 chipped machines. Just wanted to see any users here have similar issues.

Of course, if that's an existing issue with the 2018 Mbp or T2-chipped MacBooks, would be good to warn users not to connect their external drive using the right side Thunderbolt. As I have lost data on 2 external drives.

I have reported this to Apple, they told me so far only 2 users reported this. There are no updates from their engineering department as I was told. I am reluctant to re-order another Mbp just in case this is a Thunderbolt hardware issue rather than firmware.

The following is the video on how you could replicate the issue on your machine.

Thanks
Wei

 

[anpaman]

Does it also happend to Macbook Pro 2018 with High Sierra ?

 

[Ploki]

ouch.

I tried with a USB3.0 dongle, i don't have a spare drive right now.

I did it like this?
- format as test1 on left side, create new folder, eject
- format as test2 on right side, create new folder, eject
- connect back to left side

is this correct?

This way the drive didn't corrupt

 

[zombat119]

Does it also happend to Macbook Pro 2018 with High Sierra ?

Hi, unfortunately all the 2018 machines I tried with was preloaded with Mojave
[doublepost=1547686660][/doublepost]

ouch.

I tried with a USB3.0 dongle, i don't have a spare drive right now.

I did it like this?
- format as test1 on left side, create new folder, eject
- format as test2 on right side, create new folder, eject
- connect back to left side

is this correct?

This way the drive didn't corrupt

Yes that is correct.

As soon as you format the drive on the right side thunderbolt ports, its already corrupted. Once you erase, it doesn't mount automatically like it should. The left side works perfectly.

If you connect a working external drive into the right side ports, it will mount. As soon as you unmount, it will corrupt the external drive.

 

[Ploki]

Hi, unfortunately all the 2018 machines I tried with was preloaded with Mojave
[doublepost=1547686660][/doublepost]

As soon as you format the drive on the right side thunderbolt ports, its already corrupted. Once you erase, it doesn't mount automatically like it should. The left side works perfectly.

If you connect a working external drive into the right side ports, it will mount. As soon as you unmount, it will corrupt the external drive.

I did, but as I said I tried with a dongle.
I erased and created a folder on the right side, ejected, then plugged into the left side and it showed up fine.

I will try to find a hard-drive which has nothing important on to try it

 

[chrfr]

Hi, unfortunately all the 2018 machines I tried with was preloaded with Mojave
[doublepost=1547686660][/doublepost]

As soon as you format the drive on the right side thunderbolt ports, its already corrupted. Once you erase, it doesn't mount automatically like it should. The left side works perfectly.

If you connect a working external drive into the right side ports, it will mount. As soon as you unmount, it will corrupt the external drive.

I'm not getting corruption from disks connected in either side. I have not tested with a Thunderbolt disk but have used USB-C drives without any problem.

 

[zombat119]

I did, but as I said I tried with a dongle.
I erased and created a folder on the right side, ejected, then plugged into the left side and it showed up fine.

I will try to find a hard-drive which has nothing important on to try it

Fair enough. I forgot to mentioned, I tried both USB-C Cable as well as dongle.
[doublepost=1547698819][/doublepost]

I'm not getting corruption from disks connected in either side. I have not tested with a Thunderbolt disk but have used USB-C drives without any problem.

Are your machine 2018 t2 chipped with Mojave 10.14.2?

 

[Clix Pix]

No problem here with my 2018 15" MBP (i9/1 TB/32 GB RAM, Vega 20, currently on Mojave 10.14.2)). I have used older external mechanical drives, G-Drive Portable SSDs, Samsung T5 USB-C SSD drives and the new Samsung X5 Thunderbolt 3 SSD. I've used them on both sides of the machine. The charging cable is plugged into one of the ports on the left side of the machine and I have several times plugged in an external drive on that side plus a second one on the right-hand side of the machine in order to transfer data from one drive to the other. Actually, the other day I had three external drives plus the charging cable plugged in so that I could more conveniently swap data among them, and everything worked flawlessly. I always take a quick look at everything to be sure all the data transferred successfully and only after that do I go ahead and eject the drives. I do not leave my external drives plugged in all the time, only when I actually need to use them.

 

[zombat119]

No problem here with my 2018 15" MBP (i7/1 TB/32 GB RAM, Vega 20, currently on Mojave 10.14.2)). I have used older external mechanical drives, G-Drive Portable SSDs, Samsung T5 USB-C SSD drives and the new Samsung X5 Thunderbolt 3 SSD. I've used them on both sides of the machine. The charging cable is plugged into one of the ports on the left side of the machine and I have several times plugged in an external drive on that side plus a second one on the right-hand side of the machine in order to transfer data from one drive to the other. Actually, the other day I had three external drives plus the charging cable plugged in so that I could more conveniently swap data among them, and everything worked flawlessly. I always take a quick look at everything to be sure all the data transferred successfully and only after that do I go ahead and eject the drives. I do not leave my external drives plugged in all the time, only when I actually need to use them.

Thank you very much. I will go to the Apple store to give it a try again, and potentially re-order another MBP.

 

[Diazepam]

I don't know how closely my usage scenario resembles yours, but for what it's worth ...

With my 2018 MBP, with Mojave 10.14.2 installed, I have used ...

- 4 different (old) USB 2.0 flash drives (connected thru A-C adapter)
- 1 old 2TB Western Digital spinning ext. drive (USB 3, I think) (connected thru A-C adapter)
- 1 new Kingston USB-C (3.1) drive

(I have also connected all these drives to the laptop with High Sierra installed on another partition)

MBP 13" w/ Touch Bar, 16GB RAM, 2.3 GHz Core i5, 512 GB SSD

I have connected the drives on either side of my MBP. No problems whatsoever.

I think you got a bad piece. Get it exchanged ASAP.

 

[Ploki]

Fair enough. I forgot to mentioned, I tried both USB-C Cable as well as dongle.
[doublepost=1547698819][/doublepost]

Are your machine 2018 t2 chipped with Mojave 10.14.2?

Yeah, 13" 2018

 

[chrfr]

Are your machine 2018 t2 chipped with Mojave 10.14.2?

Mine is a 2018 2.3GHz i5 13".