MacBook Air M1 Ventura Version 13.1 (22C65) here with the same issues for months now. Tried the settings adjustment mentioned above. Nothing seems to work. Only thing I haven't tried is powered USB hub but that doesn't seem to be an absolute fix. Almost glad it's happening on Macs besides the Air, because I figured they were intentionally making the harddrives dismount because the added storage (if it actually worked reliably) would make this MacBook Air M1 a steal, and a beastly laptop. I'm streaming on Twitch while making beats in FL Studio, or recording vocals with Plugins in Pro Tools, and it is doing crazy work for 8GB RAM and 256GB flash storage. But I am beyond disapointed and frustrated with the external hard drive dismounting (Western Digital that said good for Mac on Amazon). No one likes added frustration and limitation. If you're reading this, I feel your pain! haha