Do you disconnect external drives when upgrading?

[netnothing]

Just curious to those that have external drives always connected to their Mac.....do you disconnect those drives before upgrading, either major releases or minor releases?

I have an M1 Mac Studio with a fast OWC Thunderbolt SSD as well as a slower OWC enclosure with spinning drives. I know that overall when applying updates, it seems they go slower for me, especially with the external enclosure connected with the spinning drives. I've always kept everything connected, but I'm curious if people do the same.

 

[fisherking]

if you're updating the operating system on your internal drive, what's the concern? i've never thought about disconnecting my external drives when updating the OS. just wondering what the concern would be...

 

[netnothing]

if you're updating the operating system on your internal drive, what's the concern? i've never thought about disconnecting my external drives when updating the OS. just wondering what the concern would be...

No concern, just curious about what people do. I've always kept them connected, but ever since the last OS, I feel macOS really slows down the boot process with those older spinning drives connected.

I'm also never really sure if the update process touches anything on any of the external drives like permissions or Time Machine data (since my TM drive is an external).

 

[macrlz9]

I remember a bug in the public release of Mac OS X erased connected external drives during the upgrade. I think it was 10.3 Panther.

 

[alexclst]

Never thought much about it, and certainly wouldn't do it for minor updates. But the only external drive is for Time Machine. Maybe worth doing for the major updates...

 

[!!!]

I generally disconnect my drives when shutting down or restarting. For upgrades, I would highly recommend disconnecting HDDs, as they will be repeatedly powered on and off as macOS can restart many times during an upgrade. No reason to put the extra wear and tear.

And I always disconnect my backup drive when I'm done using it. No reason to subject yourself to the possibility of something happening to it because you left it connected.

 

[flowrider]

If I did - it would be a real hassle, since all my "external" drives (9 of 'em) are internal to my M2 Mac Pro😱

Lou

 

[gilby101]

I feel macOS really slows down the boot process with those older spinning drives connected.

I agree. Automounting multiple volumes on 3 HDD certainly slows any startup. I set my HDD volumes to not automount and have Disk Utility to start at login ready for me to manually mount the volumes. I don't reboot very often so this is not a hassle. I don't physically disconnect any drives for system updates.

 

[haralds]

With my Studio, I have experienced hangs on reboot when the drives are connected. I disconnect when I remember, or when the screen stays dark on reboot.

 

[Mike57000]

Of course, all unnecessary devices should always be off when updating. Especially disks.
I confirm a previous installer bug erasing all attached disks. It was a catastrophic failure when there was a space in disk name.
Installer can crash because of unidentified enclosure firmwares.
All the process will be much longer, because of enumerated devices, mounting spinning disks, indexing.

 

[n-evo]

Mac users are roaring in rage because of a nasty installment glitch that erases data on external hard drives.

After upgrading to Mac OS X 10.3, better known as Panther, they are finding external FireWire drives are no longer recognized by the host machine. In many cases, all the data the drives stores are also gone.

Bye-Bye Data: Mac's Panther OS Accidentally Erases External Hard Drives

freerepublic.com

This mildly traumatized a generation of Mac users who upgraded to Mac OS X Panther and saw their external FireWire drives corrupted afterwards. It happened to a friend of mine who managed to warn me in time to disconnect my external FireWire HD before upgrading. Because I had a Mac OS X v10.3 Panther Install DVD it wasn’t clear if the bug would keep occuring. So out of habit I always disconnect external drives when reinstalling macOS. It also saves me from accidentally erasing the wrong drive. Better safe than sorry and it’s not like disconnecting one or two drives is an insanely difficult or time consuming task to perform (in my case at least).

Mac OS X Snow Leopard deleting the Home folder of a regular account after disabling the guest account was another fun one btw.

Anyway, I always make sure I have a backup and my backed up data can’t be touched by the installer before attempting to upgrade any device to a major new OS version. Regardless if it’s my MacBook Pro or iPhone.

 

[OWC_TAL]

I always recommend to disconnect external media when upgrading. It is not worth the risk for something to go wrong, especially in todays world of ever growing complex systems.

 

[Che Castro]

I did but it was easy , I have an enclosure , just had to press a button

 

[Sniper08]

I remember a bug in the public release of Mac OS X erased connected external drives during the upgrade. I think it was 10.3 Panther.

Bye-Bye Data: Mac's Panther OS Accidentally Erases External Hard Drives

freerepublic.com

This mildly traumatized a generation of Mac users who upgraded to Mac OS X Panther and saw their external FireWire drives corrupted afterwards. It happened to a friend of mine who managed to warn me in time to disconnect my external FireWire HD before upgrading. Because I had a Mac OS X v10.3 Panther Install DVD it wasn’t clear if the bug would keep occuring. So out of habit I always disconnect external drives when reinstalling macOS. It also saves me from accidentally erasing the wrong drive. Better safe than sorry and it’s not like disconnecting one or two drives is an insanely difficult or time consuming task to perform (in my case at least).

Mac OS X Snow Leopard deleting the Home folder of a regular account after disabling the guest account was another fun one btw.

Anyway, I always make sure I have a backup and my backed up data can’t be touched by the installer before attempting to upgrade any device to a major new OS version. Regardless if it’s my MacBook Pro or iPhone.

Yup, count me as one of them. Super ******. Is it likely to happen again? No. But just like having an external display plugged into my macbook in clamshell mode, I prefer to do the upgrades with the machine with as little attached as possible. Between 10.3 and my own fat finger I'd rather keep my setup as simple as possible for OS upgrades.

 

[netnothing]

Thanks everyone. I decided to disconnect everything today and it the update went smooth. Actually quicker than keeping the drives attached.

 

[kagharaht]

Bye-Bye Data: Mac's Panther OS Accidentally Erases External Hard Drives

freerepublic.com

This mildly traumatized a generation of Mac users who upgraded to Mac OS X Panther and saw their external FireWire drives corrupted afterwards. It happened to a friend of mine who managed to warn me in time to disconnect my external FireWire HD before upgrading. Because I had a Mac OS X v10.3 Panther Install DVD it wasn’t clear if the bug would keep occuring. So out of habit I always disconnect external drives when reinstalling macOS. It also saves me from accidentally erasing the wrong drive. Better safe than sorry and it’s not like disconnecting one or two drives is an insanely difficult or time consuming task to perform (in my case at least).

Mac OS X Snow Leopard deleting the Home folder of a regular account after disabling the guest account was another fun one btw.

Anyway, I always make sure I have a backup and my backed up data can’t be touched by the installer before attempting to upgrade any device to a major new OS version. Regardless if it’s my MacBook Pro or iPhone.

I remember that. Right up to Mac OS Catalina I was unplugging everything when I updated the Mac. 😬 Nowadays, the advancement of Apple OS updates has vastly improved and very stable. I leave everything connected now with no worries.

 

[MBAir2010]

I forgot to disconnect 5 drives as the Tahoe upgrade went great!

 

[Fishrrman]

Agree with OWC in reply 12 above.

Best to disconnect external stuff if you can turn it off.