problems with external drive and mac studio display

Question

Level 1

12 points

problems with external drive and mac studio display

When I connect my brand new sandisk pro 1Tb to the studio display, connected to my brand new macbook air (2024), the latter freezes from time to time, erratically and I have to hard shut it down. Sometimes, even the finder is dead! When I work without the external drive, things are fine!!! So I am no trying to connect it directly to the mac itself. perhaps a problem of communication speed? Have you experienced such weird issues? Thanks. Dany

MacBook Air 15″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Aug 4, 2024 4:43 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Aug 4, 2024 7:07 AM in response to merittel

Display data can not be late, or the display will go partly blank. So display data always have highest priority on the Thunderbolt cable. Connecting a studio display over Thunderbolt uses up almost all the cable bandwidth servicing the display.

You should not connect high-speed SSD drives to the display, connect only lower speed devices.

Reply

Answer 2

Aug 4, 2024 8:14 AM in response to merittel

No, but having the drive 'disappear' because it had no bandwidth to transfer data or status information might cause that symptom.

To get the full speed for the display through a Thunderbolt cable, the inbound data conductors must be 'turned around' into outbound data conductors for each refresh of the screen. That means the Inbound pathway from the drive to the computer 'disappears' for part of every screen refresh, some 60 or more times a second.

Reply

Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

245,459 points

Aug 4, 2024 5:42 AM in response to merittel

Definitely try connecting it directly to the Mac, but how is the monitor connected?

Reply

Answer 4

merittel Author

Level 1

12 points

Aug 4, 2024 5:49 AM in response to BDAqua

to the macbook

Reply

Answer 5

merittel Author

Level 1

12 points

Aug 4, 2024 7:42 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I see your point thanks. Is that sufficient to slow the mac down to freeze?

Reply

Answer 6

merittel Author

Level 1

12 points

Aug 4, 2024 8:45 AM in response to merittel

Eill experiment by connecting directly to the mac and update in a few days. Interesting riddle for sure

Reply

Answer 7

merittel Author

Level 1

12 points

Aug 9, 2024 11:01 PM in response to merittel

Thanks to the Moderator for indicating how to find the thread. You guys were 100% correct. No more problems with a direct connection. We all learned an important lesson. Thank you very much!

Reply