New Mac Pro Has Hard Drive Issue, Apple Planning Fix in macOS Update

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In a support document published today, Apple said certain SATA hard drives might unexpectedly disconnect from the 2023 Mac Pro after the computer wakes from sleep. Apple said it is "aware of this issue" and will fix it in a "future macOS update."

Mac Pro Feature Red
While the Mac Pro is configured with SSD storage, it has SATA ports for connecting internal hard drives, and some can disconnect due to a bug.

"Certain models of internal SATA drives might unexpectedly disconnect from your computer after your Mac wakes from sleep," said Apple. "This can occur if your Mac automatically goes to sleep or if you manually put your Mac to sleep. If you see a message that your disk was not ejected properly, you can restart your Mac to reconnect to the drive."

As a temporary workaround, users can prevent their Mac Pro from automatically going to sleep by opening the System Settings app, clicking on Displays → Advanced…, and turning on "Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off."

Released on Tuesday, the new Mac Pro features Apple's M2 Ultra chip. The desktop tower has the same design as the Intel-based model from 2019, but lacks graphics card support and user-upgradeable RAM due to Apple silicon's unified architecture. Customers who do not need PCIe expansion should consider the Mac Studio instead.

Related Roundup: Mac Pro
Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Caution)
Related Forum: Mac Pro

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Top Rated Comments

timborama Avatar
timborama
35 months ago
Left out “Affects only small number of users”. Isn't that the standard tagline for every Apple issue?!
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Fan 2008 Avatar
Apple Fan 2008
35 months ago

Oh. Well, if you’re spending that much to get that much speed and performance, I don’t see why you wouldn’t use SSD.
To have a back-up drive or storage drive.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
retta283 Avatar
retta283
35 months ago

Oh. Well, if you’re spending that much to get that much speed and performance, I don’t see why you wouldn’t use SSD.
Traditional hard drives are still just fine for data storage, when access is irregular enough that the read/write speed is irrelevant. Possibly more reliable in the event of failure as there is higher chance of recovering data from a failing HDD than SSD, unless the tech has gotten more advanced than what I remember.

The term 'spinning rust' is asinine. SSDs are an inherent innovation, but the HDD technology is not outright junk. I have 10MB hard drives that still work, and SSDs bought a few years ago that are unusable, it's always a gamble no matter what the technology is.

Edit: not necessarily disagreeing with your point considering the price of the thing, just some comments. Don't mean to sound condescending with this post.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PieTunes Avatar
PieTunes
35 months ago

I thought all the configurations were SSD. I’m confused.
It’s regarding SATA hard drives you install yourself.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Weasel13 Avatar
Weasel13
35 months ago

I thought all the configurations were SSD. I’m confused.
Many SSD are SATA. Many people still use HD because they need more space than is practical with SSD. What if you need 50TB? That's a lot of SSD's... ;)
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
persona1138 Avatar
persona1138
35 months ago
The Mac Pro is the dumbest machine. Just buy a Mac Studio.

PCIe slots are nice and all, if you need a ProTools card or a Blackmagic capture card. But you can get external PCIe card enclosures with Thunderbolt.

And in the film and TV world, trust me, you don’t need BOTH of those cards installed… because the same person who MIXES the movie or TV show isn’t also capturing/editing it. Two different fields. I don’t need a ProTools card AND a capture card in the same machine.

The lack of GPU support means that cards like the ones I mentioned (or extra internal hard drives) is the only real use for the PCIe slots. (And internal third party drives clearly have a temporary problem, as illustrated by this MacRumors article.)

And speaking of storage… Don’t go for internal storage. Just get either a NAS with 10 gig Ethernet or a DAS with Thunderbolt.

The Mac Pro costs about $4000 more than the Mac Studio, which has the exact same specs. (And you should do anything I described above with a Mac Studio.)

Apple couldn’t figure out what the purpose of a modular Mac Pro was with their (excellent) chip architecture, so they just said: “Screw it, let’s throw a Mac Studio in our leftover Intel towers and call it a day.”

Just buy a Mac Studio, if you need that kind of power. It does the same job for $4,000 less.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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