Big Sur filled my external drive?

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Big Sur filled my external drive?

I have an external drive which has been working fine until yesterday when I updated from Catalina 10.15.7 to Big Sh 11.1

Today, that external drive no longer appear on Finder. In Disk Utility, unable to conduct First Aid. And the drive there appears FULL. (Which is impossible, based on the stock it holds only). (La Cie Rugged USB-C TB3 5 TB.

Tried the drive on another MAc : same problem.

Anyone else has had such issues ?

I'm afraid the beast has made a big F with my drive.

LAst thing I want to do is indeed scrap the drive by re-formatting it.

Any idea ?

MacBook

Posted on Jan 21, 2021 9:39 PM

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Answer 1

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Barney-15E

Level 10

115,948 points

Jan 22, 2021 8:27 AM in response to lanstrad1

I don't know. I've never checked anything larger than 1 TB.

I don't know, offhand, if ExFAT has any file integrity checking, but if you don't need to use it with windows, I would format it with HFS+ or APFS.

You're using a 5TB drive as portable storage? I don't know if they have gotten any better, but HDDs are very fragile. If they are spinning, they can't take much of a shock. Just slipping out of the fingers when moving it around on the desk might damage it. The ones with a soft rubber housing around the case do much better. However, I don't think any damage caused by shock would manifest as you have seen. It would just fail completely.

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Answer 2

lanstrad1 Author

Level 2

414 points

Jan 26, 2021 6:19 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you very much Barney-15E.

I have some questioning here: You suggested that I format either HFS+ or APFS, I finally found a way to disperse all its content to a few other drives to be able to proceed.

Just to make sure (and provide some additions to my description of use above):

that drive is indeed a mostly a storage of a few drives I did not want to carry abroad. BUT:
I also save new material to it as needed - which would eventually be copied to my drives (eventually here may means a long time)
I use it on more than one Mac (no Windows for now, and if I ever need some files to be used under Windows, I can surely copy on some other drive to carry). It may be connected to at least two macs back and forth. Just want to make sure such a formatting will not take me into all sort of permissions time wasters...

Would HFS+ or APFS still be the way to go ? (I do not see HFS+ as an option when in disk utility though - when clicking ''Erase''. And should I chose GUID Partition Map ?

Thanks again,

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

115,948 points

Jan 22, 2021 6:08 AM in response to lanstrad1

How is the drive formatted? Is it HFS+ or APFS, or did you leave it formatted for Windows? If it is a TB drive, I don't imagine it was formatted NTFS, but perhaps.

If it was NTFS, you would have needed to install software to write to it. If that software doesn't work with Big Sur, it likely prevents it from mounting the drive.

Could you mount the drive in Disk Utility?

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Answer 4

lanstrad1 Author

Level 2

414 points

Jan 22, 2021 8:04 AM in response to Barney-15E

From what I see now in Disk Utility, it is ExFAT. I did not bother formatting it when received it from Apple online store.

It ended out being mounted (I can access it now...)

Tried twice to run First Aid on it, but had to stop it both times... like it never ends... Don't know how long this process is supposed to take on a 5TB drive, but that seems to be stuck on the stage ''Checking the system hierarchy''. How long should I get this running before concluding it is idle ?

Should I worry and find another drive ? - I'm away for a while and content on this drive is content from 3 external drives I have at home...

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Answer 5

lanstrad1 Author

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414 points

Jan 22, 2021 8:35 AM in response to Barney-15E

Yes it is a rugged one (LaCie rugged - those with heavy/large orange borders. It’s designed for transportation.

now i can tell that finalizing the First Aid (apparently succesfully) took about 15-20 minutes.

nevertheless, guess i’ll find space to empty it and reformat as you suggested.

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Answer 6

Barney-15E

Level 10

115,948 points

Jan 22, 2021 8:41 AM in response to lanstrad1

nevertheless, guess i’ll find space to empty it and reformat as you suggested.

Since it was merely copies of what you have, formatting it with a more robust file system might be better in the long run.

- those with heavy/large orange borders. It’s designed for transportation.

Yes. Those seem to work pretty well. I've used those and the rugged G-Drives. Both seem to handle the abuse of lugging them around pretty well.

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Answer 7

Barney-15E

Level 10

115,948 points

Jan 26, 2021 11:45 AM in response to lanstrad1

Sorry, HFS+ is Mac OS Extended (journaled).

For either, use GUID partition map.

APFS is not optimized for spinning hard drives. However, it’s biggest issue is not worrying about file extents getting scattered all over the drive, slowing down access. If you edit large files on the drive (as opposed to just saving them there once), it shouldn’t be a big deal.

Since you are using it on multiple Macs, I would enable the “Ignore ownership…” setting in Get Info “Sharing & Permissions”.

That will allow access to all files by all users on each Mac. You might have to set it on both Macs, but I’m not certain about that.

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Big Sur filled my external drive?

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