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Can't eject external Time Machine disk

M

mackiee

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 14, 2014
99
51
I'm using an external disk as my Time Machine backup disk. Only doing manual backups. The disk is partitioned in two volumes, first the Time Machine volume (encrypted), then a smaller "Files" exFAT volume.

After I have done a manual backup, when the backup is completed, I try to eject the disks. This almost never works... Most of the time the exFAT partition will be ejected but the Time Machine partition will not eject. If I try to eject it once again nothing will happen. After a while there is an error message saying that the disk can't be ejected because something is using it, but I'm not sure I get this message every time. If I then try to shutdown the computer I will get a black screen with the cursor visible but the MacBook Pro never shut down. I have to use the power button to do a forced shutdown.

Read somewhere that it could be Spotlight trying to indexing the disk so I did go to Spotlight Privacy settings and added both volumes to the exclude list. However, when I looked in the list after a reboot the list was empty...

Any ideas of what to do? Doesn't feel that good to always be needed to perform a forced shutdown after I have used Time Machine.
 
Last edited:
I've had that happen with certain external drives, most notably the small 1TB WD models. Other drives that I have used - Samsung, Toshiba, and even Seagate eject without a problem. I'm guessing the drive itself is the problem. You probably should swap it out for another. And.. it's never a good idea to share a Time Machine drive by partitioning it.
 
chscag said:
I've had that happen with certain external drives, most notably the small 1TB WD models. Other drives that I have used - Samsung, Toshiba, and even Seagate eject without a problem. I'm guessing the drive itself is the problem. You probably should swap it out for another. And.. it's never a good idea to share a Time Machine drive by partitioning it.
Click to expand...
This is an all new LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive 2TB. Guess that it was made with the MacBook in mind since it only has a USB-C port. I think the drive itself is a Seagate but I’m not sure.
https://www.lacie.com/gb/en/products/porsche-design/porsche-design-mobile-drive/

I’ve read several guides explaining how to have a second exFAT partition on the the same drive as the Time Machine. Maybe it’s the drive as you say. I will probably start over with just a Time Machine partition.
 
chscag said:
And.. it's never a good idea to share a Time Machine drive by partitioning it.
Click to expand...


I know you shouldn’t put data on a TM volume manually, but I’ve never heard that partitioning is an issue. I use partitioned disks with TM regularly. Do you have any specifics?
 
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