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MacBook Air M1 and Samsung T5 external SSD issue

A

adams4piece

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 26, 2015
11
2
Hey folks! I picked up the new MacBook Air and was planning on using it in conjunction with a 2TB Samsung T5 SSD external drive. However, whenever I plug the drive in, the LED on it randomly toggles between blue and red and the drive doesn't seem to mount. It also generally does not show up in Disk Utility, but occasionally it will by only showing the raw device but none of the partitions. If I try to manually mount it at this point, I get "Could not mount “disk4s1”. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868.)"

I've tried the drive in my iMac Pro and my iPad Pro, both of which can read it just fine. Here is what I've tried so far to debug the issue, none of which helps:
  1. Wiping the drive and starting fresh
  2. Different cables
  3. Formatting it with MBR and also GUID partition map, both with APFS and MacOS Journaled
  4. Both ports in the MacBook Air
Has anyone else run into a similar situation with this (or any) external drive?

Thanks in advance!
 
Last edited:
Hi, I have a new air as well as a 2 TB T5. Works fine for me. Sorry yours isn’t.
 
Have you tried updating the firmware on the T5 on another computer. I had a similar issue with Bigsur earlier this year
 
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nobackup said:
Have you tried updating the firmware on the T5 on another computer. I had a similar issue with Bigsur earlier this year
Click to expand...

Good idea, it did need a firmware update, but unfortunately it didn't fix the issue.

I tried a different and much older WD MyPassport external hard drive and it also behaved the same way. Then I tried a thumb drive which worked fine. I'm starting to think it's either an OS installation issue or a Big Sur bug, given that the USB ports do seem to work for other things.
 
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adams4piece said:
Hey folks! I picked up the new MacBook Air and was planning on using it in conjunction with a 2TB Samsung T5 SSD external drive. However, whenever I plug the drive in, the LED on it randomly toggles between blue and red and the drive doesn't seem to mount. It also generally does not show up in Disk Utility, but occasionally it will by only showing the raw device but none of the partitions. If I try to manually mount it at this point, I get "Could not mount “disk4s1”. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868.)"

I've tried the drive in my iMac Pro and my iPad Pro, both of which can read it just fine. Here is what I've tried so far to debug the issue, none of which helps:
  1. Wiping the drive and starting fresh
  2. Different cables
  3. Formatting it with MBR and also GUID partition map, both with APFS and MacOS Journaled
  4. Both ports in the MacBook Air
Has anyone else run into a similar situation with this (or any) external drive?

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
I have the exact same issue! I have two T5 1TB SSD drives, neither works on my M1 MBA, but both work on my 27" iMac. I have updated the firmware on the drives with no effect. I did plug in a 1TB Seagate SSD and it worked fine.
 
I have a T5 500GB that I use for time machine, I will report back later when I try to set it up.
 
xylitol said:
If you have issues, is your drive by any chance password protected by Samsung's software?
Click to expand...
I never used the Samsung software before today, just to update the firmware. The drive is not locked in any way, and has been working fine on several other computers.
 
I think the USB ports on that M1 Air are either severely underpowered. My external 2.5-inch backup drive works great on my iMac and 12” MacBook but not the M1 Air. I have to plug it into an active USB hub (aka one with a dedicated power supply and not one powered via the USB host device) to get it to show up and mount. Without the hub I see the exact same behavior as described above: it will blink and spin up and down but won’t mount and is listed as uninitialized in Disk Utility
 
mj_ said:
I think the USB ports on that M1 Air are either severely underpowered. My external 2.5-inch backup drive works great on my iMac and 12” MacBook but not the M1 Air. I have to plug it into an active USB hub (aka one with a dedicated power supply and not one powered via the USB host device) to get it to show up and mount. Without the hub I see the exact same behavior as described above: it will blink and spin up and down but won’t mount and is listed as uninitialized in Disk Utility
Click to expand...
This is a very good theory. I hope Apple is able to increase power draw via software, would be a bummer if this was a hardware limitation...
 
I think you are correct, I also believe they are under powered. I have a dock that plugs into both ports, I plugged in both drives that were unreadable and they both come up right away. So for now I have a work around.

Anker usb hub
 
colday said:
I think you are correct, I also believe they are under powered. I have a dock that plugs into both ports, I plugged in both drives that were unreadable and they both come up right away. So for now I have a work around.
Click to expand...

Thanks for confirming and for the recommendation! Sounds like we got to the bottom of it.
 
I just plugged in my 500GB T5. I've never updated the firmware on it... I didn't even know you could! The M1 MBA recognized it and unlocked it just fine. Disk utility successfully wiped it, and now time machine is backing up to it. As far as I can tell, it's working totally normally. Not sure what to tell you!

EDIT: by the way, holy hell time machine is fast on these things lol
 
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Just for fun I tried connecting an unpowered USB hub and then connecting the drive to that, and it works! This kinda makes the power theory a bit more questionable... Glad this works though!
 
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adams4piece said:
Just for fun I tried connecting an unpowered USB hub and then connecting the drive to that, and it works! This kinda makes the power theory a bit more questionable... Glad this works though!
Click to expand...
Yes, I use USB hub, and no issues. I think it has enough power.... have not tried directly to M1.
 
I just tried using the heavy black cable supplied with the drive, and they both worked without any problems! Switch back to the whit Apple cables and no joy, even tried using the heavy duty charging cable supplied with the MBA.

The Apple cables work with an un-powered hub, but not alone. The heavy duty Samsung cable works without a hub.
 
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colday said:
I just tried using the heavy black cable supplied with the drive, and they both worked without any problems! Switch back to the whit Apple cables and no joy, even tried using the heavy duty charging cable supplied with the MBA.

The Apple cables work with an un-powered hub, but not alone. The heavy duty Samsung cable works without a hub.
Click to expand...

Interesting, for me the included Samsung cable doesn't work without the hub (no cables do).
 
Yeah, I still think the ports are low power. As for me it is not a big issue as I will mostly use an external for backup. If I needed it for real work, I don’t think it’s much of a pain to plug in a hub, after all you get more ports with the hub. Pretty unlikely to be much walking around with an external plugged in, with or without a hub.
 
So I seem to have same issue
I have a Samsung T7 (2Tb size) worked dandy on my MBP 13" since day one
today I get my MBA M1, and everything is fine until I get to this window .

https://imgur.com/27qv30v

and samsung software keeps saying that "no Samsung portable SSD is connected" :(
tried to update Big Sur to version 11.0.1 (20B29)
thought that would help, but - no luck

what can we do ?
 
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Ghost_User said:
how is this related to the issue we are discussing here in this thread?
Click to expand...
The original post was about problems with Samsung T5s on Macs. I related my successful use of T5 on Macs, and pointed to some other sites that confirm some problems.
 
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you seem to be talking about using Samsung SSD as a bootable drive
I was under impression that the main issue we were discussing here was that the M1 Macs don't seem to be able to recognise the SSD. or that the Samsung provided software does not seem to be able to see it.
 
Ghost_User said:
you seem to be talking about using Samsung SSD as a bootable drive
I was under impression that the main issue we were discussing here was that the M1 Macs don't seem to be able to recognise the SSD. or that the Samsung provided software does not seem to be able to see it.
Click to expand...
He clearly wrote "They work reliably for me as data drives on my Intel Macbook Pro and my M1 Mac Mini." What's the confusion here? I have to imagine you missed the "data drive" and "M1 Mac Mini" parts of the sentence.
 
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