MP 1,1-5,1 internal ssd drive ejected

[ferranrobuste]

Hello,
I have a Mac Pro 5.1, the boot disk is a Crucial P2 nvme with pci-e adapter, with the Mojave 10.4.6 system installed.

I also have an OWC Electra 3G ssd mounted on an OWC pci-e adapter, where I have a copy of the Mojave system (so I can boot if the nvme disk fails), and some documents, and a HD SATA disk to store other documents.

Occasionally, the OWC ssd disk ejects automatically, and a message appears saying: "disk ejected incorrectly. Eject the OWC ssd disk before unplugging or turning it off."

I have to turn off the mac and turn it back on for the disk to reappear ...
What is this failure due to? It has happened to me several times in the last days, even with the mac asleep, or without being working with this disk.

Any advice or recommendation is welcome,

Thanks!

 

[chabig]

I would suspect either a connector problem or a cable problem. Reseat the cables to that SSD. If the problem continues, replace the cable. It could also be a dying SSD, but I would attack the connectors first.

 

[Slartibart]

A.) you can try to remount the SSD without restart via the terminal. Assuming the SSD is mounted, open a terminal and type:

diskutil list

This should give you something like this, allowing you to identify the SSD in the device list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *512.1 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh SSD 511.3 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk2
1: Apple_HFS VM Drive


Attached drives are listed with their physical locations on the left (i.e. /dev/disk0, /dev/disk1, etc), as well as with their respective partitions if available on the right (like disk0s1, disk1s2, etc).

Please be aware: you’ll see that there are physical disks (like disk0), on which several partitions may have been created. It is those partitions we’ll mount and unmount, NOT the physical drive. So if the external disk is suddenly/accidentally unmounted you can use:

diskutil mount /dev/disk1s1

in the terminal to remount it.

B.) Check the power connection (if possible try a different one) of the SSD as well as the PCI-e adapter fit and run smarttools on the SSD. Check the firmware of the OWC SSD and if needed update it.

 

[KeesMacPro]

I also have an OWC Electra 3G ssd mounted on an OWC pci-e adapter

I've had a couple of OWC Accelsior S PCIe adapters a few years ago with the exact same issue (supposing this is the PCIe adapter you're referring to).
Never used a OWC SSD , but I bet the culprit is the adapter card.

Maybe you could install the OWC SSD in a SATA bay or the optical bay to be 100% sure the issue is not related to the SSD itself.
After all the increase in I/O speed (SATA III vs SATA II) IMO is neglectible in real life...

 

[KeesMacPro]

Reseat the cables to that SSD. If the problem continues, replace the cable

There are no cables , just a PCB with connectors.

 

[Slartibart]

You can check the system console logs to nail this down further. Otherwise installing the SSD in SATA or optical bay as mentioned by @KeesMacPro is the first thing to do. In which PCIe slot do have the OWC card?

 

[ferranrobuste]

Thanks for all the answers!

- The OWC ssd is connected in Slot 3. In Slot 1 I have the graphics card, in Slot 2 a USB 3 card, and in Slot 4 the nvme boot disk (Crucial P2).
- I will try installing the OWC SSD in a SATA bay
- I will also try unchecking the option "put disks to sleep when possible" in the economizer options of the system preferences. Maybe this way it works? Mojave recognizes disks attached with pci-e adapters as external disks, so I don't know if this option can work...

 

[KeesMacPro]

I will also try unchecking the option "put disks to sleep when possible" in the economizer options of the system preferences. Maybe this way it works? Mojave recognizes disks attached with pci-e adapters as external disks, so I don't know if this option can work...

"put disks to sleep when possible" is for spinning disks , so yes I'd do that (but I dont think it's related to the issue).

If you'd like to see your NVMe as internal that's possible:

Innie: A fix for PCI drives seen as external

It is well known that macOS sees PCI drives in a cMP as external. In the past, there have been several attempts to fix this annoyance, typically through codeless kexts and driver patches. However, these approaches are far from perfect. Codeless kexts affect the properties of all (even non-PCI)...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[ferranrobuste]

"put disks to sleep when possible" is for spinning disks , so yes I'd do that (but I dont think it's related to the issue).

If you'd like to see your NVMe as internal that's possible:

Innie: A fix for PCI drives seen as external

It is well known that macOS sees PCI drives in a cMP as external. In the past, there have been several attempts to fix this annoyance, typically through codeless kexts and driver patches. However, these approaches are far from perfect. Codeless kexts affect the properties of all (even non-PCI)...

forums.macrumors.com

Yes indeed I am going to install Opencore and upgrade to Big Sur 11.2.3 (with opencore the disks are shown as internal), but wanted to try to fix the problem of the ssd disk being randomly ejected first...

So first I will try to connect it in a sata bay to see if the problem is solved, and then I will install opencore and Big Sur.

Thanks!

 

[KeesMacPro]

with opencore the disks are shown as internal

The same Innie is integrated in the OpenCore package