Hard disks ejected during sleep despite battery-only setting on MacBook Air

Even though my Mac is configured to "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" on battery only, my hard disks are still getting ejected whenever my Macbook goes to sleep. This is an issue as I'm often exporting photos etc. and this issue breaks my export process. Any suggestions?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Macbook



MacBook Air, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jun 27, 2025 7:46 AM

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Jul 7, 2025 9:49 AM in response to etrnlflame

Are the disks connected directly or via a hub/dock? If the latter, that's often the cause (the dock detects the power-saving sleep mode of the Mac and powers down the connections to the drives).


One solution would be to just prevent your Mac from sleeping. You can do that in settings (Battery > Options > set 'Prevent automatic sleeping on power adapter...' to enabled) and Lock Screen > Turn display off on power adapter > set to Never. Alternatively, you can open a Terminal window and enter:

caffeinate

(then press return). That will keep you Mac awake as long as the Terminal window is open (to cancel, you can use Control-C in the window or just close the window).

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Hard disks ejected during sleep despite battery-only setting on MacBook Air

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