Severe USB-A and Thunderbolt issues with new Mac Studio with M1 Max

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Severe USB-A and Thunderbolt issues with new Mac Studio with M1 Max

From the first moment I booted up the computer my external drives started disconnecting. I have two typical external powered 3.5" USB drives and one Lacie RAID 0 Thunderbolt (through Apples USB-C > Thunderbolt 2 adapter).

All of my the drives keep disconnecting in such a rapid succession that the system is unusable, just from the amount of notifications. The USB drives disconnect with higher frequency (1-2 seconds) when plugged through a hub, and a few times per hour while directly plugged in. The Thunderbolt drive mostly drops out on wake from sleep, and then a few times throughout the day, and nearly always fails directly on directly boot.

I am upgrading from an Intel Mac Mini 2018, in which none of these devices were having these issues. Both systems are running the latest version of MacOS, 12.4. The Mac Studio came shipped with the previous version, and the update to 12.4 didn't affect the issue at all.

I see a few people having similar issues, but not sure if they are experiencing them as sever as I. I feel that I need to bring it to an Apple Store...

Mac Studio

Posted on Jun 2, 2022 2:19 PM

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Answer 1

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basefarmer Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 4, 2022 8:42 AM in response to basefarmer

The situation has stabilized. I got a random UGREEN USB-C to USB-A hub, which seems to have solved the USB related dropouts.

The Thunderbolt issue turned out to be linked to the Mac waking up from Sleep Mode, and I bypassed the issue by changing the energy settings for drives and sleep mode. Not ideal at all however, and with Apples official Thunderbolt 3 (USB‐C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter I expect this to work flawlessly.

It's a sad world, but at the end of the day we live on a ball of dirt spinning around another ball of gas.

Stay farming and never die.

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Answer 2

lllaass

Level 10

210,459 points

Jun 3, 2022 1:39 AM in response to basefarmer

I am using one of the USB-A ports for a ™ HDD and only rarely does it disconnect.

I also have a hub made for the Mini (same size as Mini and the Studio stacks on the hub) connected to one of the Thunderbolt 4 ports on the bac. The hub contains a SSD used for ™ and other accessories and I have no problem at all disconnecting

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