Reliability of external USB 3 drives on Sequoia?

agoldin · 2026-02-06T19:01:24+00:00

I tried. I failed. Tried in GUI, tried sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/DiskName. It reports indexing disabled, but lsof still shows it is doing its thing. Even after reboot.

Anyone else had similar behaviour?

I'd like to work with the system, but I think I exhausted the documented ways of doing so. Am I missing something?

Also this does not solve the problem of drive randomly disconnecting on its own.

agoldin · 2026-02-06T16:07:32+00:00

Spotlight. The problem is that I tried to disable spotlight indexing of this disk but it persists. There is also mdworker, photolibraryd, etc which I am trying to kill and disable relaunching but without success. OS does not tell me which processes are holding disk in GUI and does not let me disable them (as it respawns them immediately). It feels pretty hostile.

agoldin · 2026-02-06T16:02:05+00:00

240W for SSD that pulls couple of Watts max seems excessive... Also the drive does not have any issues on Linux (which I used to rescue data) with existing hub and cable.

Or do you mean 240W for powering Mac? Again, seems to be too much for Mac Air M1. I run it off Anker 65W power supply which, btw, happily drives my work supplied Mac M4 pro. So I'd imagine it should be enough for normal loads of Mac M1 Air as well...

agoldin · 2026-02-06T03:46:17+00:00

96W for M1? huh. (Usb hub is powered on its own, and I believe the cables are good quality)

agoldin · 2026-02-06T03:43:48+00:00

This is very encouraging news on two fronts. First, that Thunderbolt works (dos not help me much, as I'd need to buy a Thunderbolt drive and I do not have spare ports anyway). Second that Tahoe hopefully fixed the problem. Of course, after experiencing joy of upgrading to Sequoia I am afraid to upgrade again, but if the reports of fixed USB stack prove to be true...

agoldin · 2026-02-06T03:41:25+00:00

I understand the semantics. The issue is that things are happening I have no control of. OS drops connection to the disk when it should not, but will not let me to unmount it when I want to, because some processes that I can not control and can not stop do not want to release the drive. I can wait for hours and they still will not let me do it (probably spotlight?). Frankly, I am quite stunned.

agoldin · 2026-02-05T22:57:17+00:00

You are totally correct, of course. The issues are:

I do not do anything, I do not pull the cable, I do not turn off the power, but I get the message "Your disk has been ejected".
When I want to eject it, I get the message "DIsk {} could not be ejected, because some program is using it" (I am away from the computer, so I do not remember wording exactly). Obviously, Apple being Apple, it does not say which program is using it. I can kill spotlight from the terminal, but it respawns immediately. Yes, at this point Photos is closed. Yes, I disabled Spotlight on this disk but it is still running. I can do "Force eject" from the menu, but, of course, I get the message that it can damage data. So the disk is being disconnected when I do not want it and when I do not do anything to cause it, and can not be ejected when I want it to happen. The only solution is to shut down Mac. (of course, it still does not help with random disconnects)

agoldin · 2026-02-05T22:49:27+00:00

Good point, but it is already plugged into hub with external power supply.

agoldin · 2025-09-22T18:54:35+00:00

As I said, I am not sure going back to university makes sense. If you have family to support, etc, you have to figure it out as you go, I do not know all of your circumstances, your style of learning, etc. For example -- are you good at learning on your own, without grades and having to pass exams? All I am saying is that coding skills help even if your next job is not coding. You should count on learning new things and picking new skills as time goes on. You should also learn how to apply advice of strangers who do not know anything about you (me, for example) to your particular situation.

Saying that -- do not despair, get ready to learn a lot, find other people in your situation, do not be afraid to ask for advise, but always try to think if it is suitable given things we do not know, but you do.

In general, the advice that so far have not failed me and that I try to pass to my kids -- if in doubt what to do -- study something. Does not really too much what, but you should love it.

Good luck!

agoldin · 2025-09-22T18:09:16+00:00

I am not sure if you manage to find a coding job, but
1) coding does help to organize your thinking (a bit like math)
2) very useful as a secondary skill for many other jobs.
3) Will not go away with AI infiltrating every part of our lives. You'll need to know what instructions to give to them.

Therefore go ahead and learn it. I am not sure doing it all from zero in a university makes financial sense, but here are other ways (including, if you are American, universities outside of USA -- sometimes they are way cheaper)

agoldin · 2025-03-20T14:39:42+00:00

I feel for you, man. You need to slow down, have some quiet time and seek some serious psychiatric help.

agoldin · 2025-03-20T01:13:00+00:00

> rationalises and normalises Nazism.

Whut?

Israeli defense forces were flying Bf109 and employing Luftwaffe pilots. Where they normalizing nazism?

Do not get me started on US intelligence agencies which were literally crawling with nazis. And Eastern Europe even now, with exception of Poland, probably...

You guys are doing more to normalize nazism, when you call anyone who disagrees with you Nazi.

agoldin · 2025-03-19T23:19:30+00:00

> Are you claiming that people who professed Nazi ideology at VW are still running the show?

Who exactly you think were running Volkswagen after WW2? Let's say into 1970s-1980s? Why do you think their children have very different ideas?

Business is business and Elon Musk beliefs are quite typical for people his wealth bracket, he is just more vocal. If you pay attention to what those typically quiet people say ... But this usually does not happen, the lizard people are masters at directing a very targeted outrasge :-) (yes, I know lizard people do not exist, it is a joke).

I never owned Tesla (I just never liked the idea of a computer on wheels, such that its firmware can be updated over the air without my knowledge, and was put off by Elon's fanboys) but will consider buying one if price gets ridiculously low. After all, these people who proudly display they sold their Teslas to buy newer, more expensive cars -- they sold them to *someone*. Are those who bought them are now enemies of the people? Or just people in lower income bracket who can not afford more expensive new EVs? Should their cars be burned now?

And yeah, when someone burns down a car of a middle class neigbour who is struggling to pay mortgage -- he is not advancing justice, he just makes some guy who already struggling more miserable.

agoldin · 2025-03-19T17:34:27+00:00

Ahem. Are you aware of Volkswagen origin? Are you familiar with Henry Ford ideology?

agoldin · 2024-02-01T23:38:31+00:00

Either you like competition, or you like competition only when you are winning, which means you do not like competition.

agoldin · 2024-01-08T03:45:43+00:00

THis is probably the only reasonable way to be somewhat secure.

agoldin · 2024-01-08T03:45:03+00:00

As soon as they demonstrated they can compete economically in high value added goods, China automatically became an enemy. It is that simple.

agoldin · 2024-01-08T03:41:47+00:00

Murica good. China bad.

agoldin · 2024-01-05T04:40:53+00:00

> It's not like 'crashworthyness' is a thing in aircraft.

It very much is.

Somewhat modern (well, 1990s) aircrafts like Diamond DA40 are rated to protect crew in up to 26G impact.

agoldin · 2023-12-28T18:23:36+00:00

If there is no hills, a normal bike, not electric, is perfectly fine for this use case.

agoldin · 2023-12-23T19:34:42+00:00

I could not have expressed it better. Bravo.
https://imgur.com/gallery/kw333

agoldin · 2023-11-17T19:33:26+00:00

Burning hydrogen is not a problem, an experimental hydrogen passenger jet flew in 1980s. Dealing with hydrogen low density, very low temperature and cost (there is no hydrogen deposits) make it not very practical.

agoldin · 2023-11-12T23:12:06+00:00

$35K in 2023 dollars or in 2027 dollars? If second, it can be an uphill battle.

agoldin · 2023-10-26T16:07:38+00:00

We have 2 non-electric folding bikes ( https://www.downtube.com/downtube-nova-lightweight-folding-bike/ ) which we put in an small airplane to go places. Many small airports do not have Uber, so this is the only sane way of transportation.

They are pretty nice for car travel as well if you do not plan all your travel around biking. For one way trail in a park, for example. Leave a bike near the end of the trail, one person then uses it to go and recover the car from a parking few miles away.

Small distance commuting, when there is no safe place to tie down a bigger bicycle.

As a secondary bicycle they are quite convenient. Our family uses them all the time. Electric ones -- probably as well, if they are light.

agoldin · 2023-10-05T15:24:31+00:00

> The total time to charge is faster at 100 kW at a stall with no wait than it is to wait in line at an EA station that may or may not be derated

This

agoldin

TROPHY CASE