M1 bug with external SSD

[Odan]

With the M1 Mac mini I've experienced yet another external drive issue using a brand new SSD. At first it recognised the drive and allowed me to format it with the only option being APFS. The "mistake" I made was to also choose encrypted as I always do with my drives without any issue. In the middle of copying files to the external SSD the process was abruptly ended and I could no longer see the drive in finder. Even the disk utility could no longer mount it and more surprisingly could not even erase it or any other operation with an error code 43 that has something to do with disk initialisation or whatever...

I searched for a while for other Mac software that would just erase this drive but in the end I just plugged it into my Ubuntu 22.10 machine and its default disk utility recognised the drive and formatted it in 2 seconds! Then I plugged it back into the Mac and was obviously forced to format it to APFS, this time I chose no encryption or anything else. It works fine now without any interruption.

What is the point of this if I solved my own problem? Just to report another frustrating experience with the M1 Mac, I really am disappointed in this machine compared to my previous intel Macs. Far more bugs for people who actually use peripherals like hard drives and bluetooth devices. It's flagrant how much less reliable it is.

 

[ovbacon]

What was the drive, brand, size etc? Was it an off the shelve ssd or a self build?

 

[Odan]

What was the drive, brand, size etc? Was it an off the shelve ssd or a self build?

A 2 tb sandisk, I don't build SSDs.

 

[ovbacon]

I had a SanDisk 4TB Extreme PRO SSD, it lasted 2 days before failing miserably and the speeds were not great. Returned it and build my own.

 

[ovbacon]

I do hear that the samsung t7 2tb shield is good but I do not have it so someone who has might have a better idea.

 

[thebart]

I do hear that the samsung t7 2tb shield is good but I do not have it so someone who has might have a better idea.

I have a T7 2TB Shield and the speed is below what is reported for that drive with Intel based mini. I get 800+MB/s write and 680MB/s read vs 900+MB/s read / write according to those with Intel based minis

 

[Fishrrman]

I have never seen a drive that "forced" me to format it to APFS.

Then again, I DON'T encrypt my drives. I WANT them to be easily accessible.

Perhaps modern versions of OS and disk utility don't permit HFS+ and encryption...

 

[Honza1]

Sounds like some issue with drive itself or compatibility between systems. I have M1 MBP and Samsung T7, formatted as APFS, encrypted, and it is working flawlessly. I bought T7 since it had good reviews - with macs - on line.
I recall there were some issues with USB implementation compatibility between Macs and some SSDs, so one needs to check if that specific SSD is known to work with Macs. Annoying...

 

[Boyd01]

At first it recognised the drive and allowed me to format it with the only option being APFS.

This sounds like the classic mistake we have all probably made - I know that I did the first time I used APFS. Apple changed their disk utility app so that the default view is to only show volumes. In this view (as I undertand it) you are only seeing the lowest level of the disk formatting heirarchy and it will only show APFS options.

More confusing software design from Apple, hiding the advanced options in places that aren't obvious. Use the "view" dropdown menu to choose "Show all devices"

Now notice how the disk name you chose before is actually at the bottom of the list. Choose the next level up, which will have a name like "Container Disk 3" and you can format however you like. But you will still only be formatting a partition this way. If you want to erase/reformat the entire disk, choose the top level name (the manufacturer's name). For example, my T7 shows as "Samsung PSSD T7 Shield Media". If I choose that and click the erase button it will wipe the whole drive and reformat as I choose. From what you have posted, you may not have actually erased the whole disk.

 

[thebart]

^^^ yeah this gotcha got me too. It's bad design to hide certain crucial options from the user without telling them you're hiding options from them. They need to do something like list the available options and grey them out, and have an i or ? button to explain why these options aren't available and how to enable them. Instead they just let the user blithely pick the option that isn't optimal or right for them. In my case the options were HFS and exfat

 

[Odan]

I had a SanDisk 4TB Extreme PRO SSD, it lasted 2 days before failing miserably and the speeds were not great. Returned it and build my own.

That’s an idea to explore. Seems people are in favor of Samsung SSDs. I’m an iPhone guy so I find it strange to buy a Samsung product, but if their ssds are truly the best then it is what it is. For now I’m trying a Samsung 870 QVO (8 tb) in a IB-246-C31-G enclosure. Works fine even with APFS and I actually transferred a lot, but I did not try any encryption...it looked problematic with the other drive, like I suspect it even prevents the disk utility from formatting or erasing it. Lucky I also have an Ubuntu system...

 

[Odan]

That’s an idea to explore. Seems people are in favor of Samsung SSDs. I’m an iPhone guy so I find it strange to buy a Samsung product, but if their ssds are truly the best then it is what it is. For now I’m trying a Samsung 870 QVO (8 tb) in a IB-246-C31-G enclosure. Works fine even with APFS and I actually transferred a lot, but I did not try any encryption...it looked problematic with the other drive, like I suspect it even prevents the disk utility from formatting or erasing it. Lucky I also have an Ubuntu system...

After some tests with encryption, it looks like the APFS encryption doesn't work that well... I think it's some sort of software bug, blame it on apple or ssd vendors, encryption with ssds is problematic in my experience. More shocking than that is the fact that I could not format or erase the drive once it was no longer accessible. Again, lucky I have an Ubuntu machine that will format the drive regardless... In the end I'm not super convinced of the new M series and the software that goes with it. Intel Macs used to just work for me...

 

[Spike77777]

I just picked up a M1 mini w/16g ram and 256gb ssd and just ordered a 2tb NvMe M.2 ssd and enclosure. Which format is preferred? In the past I would use ExFAT so the external drive could be used in either Mac or Windows.

 

[Fishrrman]

For an SSD drive that is used ONLY with the Mac you have a choice:
- APFS (required for boot drives and time machine backups)
or
- HFS+ (Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format) -- for drives that will be used for general data storage.

I STILL USE HFS+ for everything (except boot drives that require APFS). Most 3rd party utilities can still recognize and work with HFS+.
Not so with APFS -- disk utility is about the only utility that recognizes it.

 

[Spike77777]

I will have to play with the different formats and see what works. I still use mac/windows about 50/50. May just keep this one dedicated for Mac.

 

[ovbacon]

For an SSD drive that is used ONLY with the Mac you have a choice:
- APFS (required for boot drives and time machine backups)
or
- HFS+ (Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format) -- for drives that will be used for general data storage.

I STILL USE HFS+ for everything (except boot drives that require APFS). Most 3rd party utilities can still recognize and work with HFS+.
Not so with APFS -- disk utility is about the only utility that recognizes it.

Thank you! This is very helpful info

 

[Odan]

I will have to play with the different formats and see what works. I still use mac/windows about 50/50. May just keep this one dedicated for Mac.

I think the encryption option is more problematic than the formats themselves. APFS encryption with certain SSDs can make it unusable but APFS without encryption is fine.