Mac Mini Late 2014 keeps freezing and shutting down while working on Ext SSD

[Alyss_]

Hello everyone.
I wrote a while ago asking for help to install the OS on my ext. Sandisk SSD and it worked perfectly.
I'm a Graphic Designer and this was really helpful cause I installed the Adobe Suite on it and it works much more faster than before.
The only problem is, when I'm working on something big, like Editing on After Effects it suddenly freezes and all I can do is force-restart.
It's not the usual "rainbow swirl" kinda freezing, but literally nothing moves anymore but the cursor.
I feel like the SSD disconnects or loses power..or something similar, if you know what I mean.
I'm not sure how to solve this. I've been working on a big project and only today I had to force-restart 4 times. (same yesterday)
Any idea how to figure this out?

Thanks

Ps. Sometimes it happens also when I'm on Finder and going through photos by opening the preview with the space bar.

 

[philipma1957]

Could be you are way past ram and paging to the ssd.
By working on "something big" I assume the files are big. The 2014 ram max is 16 and you can not up grade to 16 if you are at 8. The work around is get an ssd 1tb boot with it. Well you are doing that. So you could just be too much paging to the ssd. Ie you have 8gb ram and the file is 32 gb so 24 gb pages to the ssd. The ssd controller get overwhelmed and you get a no beachball freeze up.

Next time this happens. walk away and come back in 25 minutes to see if it is unstuck. If it is unstuck most likely I am right and you may need a better machine.

Yeah sucks as Macs are not cheap. If it stays stuck for hours I could be wrong and maybe a better cased for the ssd will do. Do you use usb3 or thunderbolt 2 to hold the external ssd.

 

[lixuelai]

Try a different drive first.

 

[Alyss_]

Could be you are way past ram and paging to the ssd.
By working on "something big" I assume the files are big. The 2014 ram max is 16 and you can not up grade to 16 if you are at 8. The work around is get an ssd 1tb boot with it. Well you are doing that. So you could just be too much paging to the ssd. Ie you have 8gb ram and the file is 32 gb so 24 gb pages to the ssd. The ssd controller get overwhelmed and you get a no beachball freeze up.

Next time this happens. walk away and come back in 25 minutes to see if it is unstuck. If it is unstuck most likely I am right and you may need a better machine.

Yeah sucks as Macs are not cheap. If it stays stuck for hours I could be wrong and maybe a better cased for the ssd will do. Do you use usb3 or thunderbolt 2 to hold the external ssd.

Well this time the "big" file was a 200mb file.
I tried to close the other Adobe apps while working on AE and such but nothing...It does it both when I'm working and when I'm exporting files - converting them to videos.
But like I said sometimes it does that just when i'm going through photos in "preview" on finder so that's weird.

I tried to do what you said about leaving it there and see what happens, sometimes it restarts itself sometimes it doesn't and I have to force-restart.

I mean I sadly know I need a better machine but this behavior is weird.. cause the rest works perfectly.

To hold the SSD I use the USB3
This is the SSD >

 

[Alyss_]

Try a different drive first.

You mean a different SSD?

 

[lixuelai]

You mean a different SSD?

Yes, or even a hard drive. You need to isolate the component that’s failing.

 

[Alyss_]

Yes, or even a hard drive. You need to isolate the component that’s failing.

I got this one during the lockdown so I could work from home , it's only 3 months old..
I can't get a new one already tbh..

 

[Don Legacy]

30 months late to the party but I can confirm that on a Mac mini 2014 I have had USB 3 freezes in multiple configurations, as reliable as clockwork.
All combinations of a) 1,4GHz Mac mini 2014 and b) 2,8 GHz 8 GB Mac mini 2014 with: i) cheap $10 USB3-SATA interface with cheap 120 GB SSD, ii) 8 TB Western Digital external RAID with USB 3, iii) USB-C NVMe in external case with USB 3 cable are unable to complete booting from the external drive or copy more than a few 100 MB without a hard freeze of the machine.
Doing the identical transfers via an intermediate USB2 hub (essentially forcing the transfer speed down to USB2 speeds) works without a hitch in every combination so the data is good and the drives and the Macs are, too.
In short, USB 3 stalls on the Mac mini 2014, and I have been unable to upgrade firmware (the excellent Silent Knight tells me there is a much newer version but none of the system upgrades available have installed it).