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

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 (Neutral)
Related Forum: Mac Pro

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 18

iOS 18.3 Coming Soon: Here's What's New

Monday January 13, 2025 5:33 am PST by
iOS 18.3 is currently in beta for developers and public beta testers. So far, the upcoming iPhone software update is very minor in scope. Below, we outline what is new in iOS 18.3 so far. The only potential new feature coming to iPhones with iOS 18.3 so far is robot vacuum support in the Home app, but this functionality is not yet live. Apple is laying the groundwork for the feature,...
new magsafe charger

Apple Releases Updated MagSafe Charger Firmware

Tuesday January 14, 2025 11:30 am PST by
Apple today released new firmware designed for the 25W MagSafe Charger that is compatible with the iPhone 12 and later and the latest AirPods and Apple Watch models. The updated firmware is version 2A143, up from the 2A138 firmware that the accessory shipped with. In the Settings app, you'll see a different version number than the internal firmware number. The 2024 MagSafe charger was...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature Single Camera 1 Redux

'iPhone 17 Air' Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Wednesday January 15, 2025 7:16 am PST by
While the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" is not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the "ultra-thin" device. Overall, the "iPhone 17 Air" is shaping up to be a mixed bag. Due to its thinness, the device is expected to have some limited specifications compared to the iPhone 17 Pro models, including only a single rear camera, only a single speaker, no SIM...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 8 New Features

Thursday January 9, 2025 5:45 am PST by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. iPhone 17 Pro concept based on rumors Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of January 2025: More aluminum: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models ...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

HomePod Mini 2 and New Apple TV Launch Timeframe Narrowed Down

Sunday January 12, 2025 4:11 pm PST by
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman recently reported that Apple plans to release new HomePod mini and Apple TV models this year, and now he has provided a more precise timeframe. In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said Apple is currently aiming to launch the new HomePod mini and Apple TV models "toward the end of the year." That timeframe suggests the devices will be released at some point...
severance new york promo 1

Apple Promotes Severance Season 2 Premiere With Lumon Industries Pop-Up and Visits From Actors

Tuesday January 14, 2025 3:47 pm PST by
Ahead of the season two premiere of hit TV show Severance, Apple is marketing the show with a fun Severance pop-up at the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Apple has assembled a glass cube with workstations that are identical to the setups that Lumon employees use on the show, complete with employees "working," doing yoga, playing catch, throwing paper airplanes, sipping coffee, and...
airpods pro 2 gradient

AirPods Pro 3 Expected This Year: Here's What We Know

Wednesday January 8, 2025 7:05 am PST by
Despite being released over two years ago, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 continue to dominate the wireless earbud market. However, with the AirPods Pro 3 expected to launch sometime in 2025, anyone thinking of buying Apple's premium earbuds may be wondering if the next generation is worth holding out for. Apart from their audio and noise-canceling performance, which are generally regarded as...
General Apps Messages Redux

Phishing Attacks Use This Simple Trick to Defeat iPhone Message Security

Monday January 13, 2025 6:11 am PST by
A new social engineering tactic is being used by cybercriminals to trick iPhone users into disabling iMessage's built-in phishing protection, in a bid to expose them to malicious links and scams, according to BleepingComputer. The scam exploits a security feature in iMessage that automatically disables links from unknown senders. Apple told the outlet that when users reply to these messages...

Top Rated Comments

timborama Avatar
21 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
21 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
21 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
21 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
21 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
21 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)