SanDisk Extreme 1TB doesn't mount as USB on MAC

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hi,
My first post here to review issues with with the SANDISK Extreme 1TB portable external USB-C drive.

My issues:

  1. Biggie! New unit out of the box formatting. Doesn’t reliably mount or back up with 3ᴿᴰ party software on MacBook or MacMini M1 machines. Running macOS Monterey or later (including Ventura Beta OS releases. Contributing factor bad advice from support with a case I presented to them. Guess I don’t fit into a script.
  2. Actual drive speed is well below the rated speed of the device even with standard formatting as per Blackmagic or AJA testing. (WRITE: 500-600MB/s, READ: 700-800MB/s).
  3. Exchange offered, however I’m in warranty with reseller (so I could exchange it, but why?). They offered no advice, no workarounds, NOTHING.
  4. Figured it out myself. FYI, reformatting the drive to APFS or HFS+ so it could backup OS related and other files did the trick.

Samsung has a much cheaper and faster T7 product available on Amazon, Will take it back for refund at place of purchase.

2

Hi @Henry-In-Florida,

Have you opened a Support Case? If not opened, for more information, please contact the SD Technical Support team for the best assistance and troubleshooting:
https://kb.sandisk.com/app/ask

3

Keerti,

I got a lot of progress without the use of WD software. I’d still like to know why the software doesn’t run as described.

FYI, opened a case but did not hear anything back.

Respectfully,
Henry Seiden
E: Techworks Pro E-mail
W: Techworks Pro Co. Home Page

4

My Sandisk Extreme 4TB was working fine until I updated to MacOS 12.6.6 (Monterey). Then it quit appearing. Diskutil could see it, so I Erased/Reformatted and it worked again for Time Machine. But after a few backups, it disappeared again. Repeated, same symptoms. They say it needs updated firmware, but you need to apply it with a Windows PC. The library’s PC couldn’t see the drive, possibly due to it using Virtual Machines, so I had to return the device to get an updated one. Still waiting, but I decided to buy a different brand (Samsung T7) that allows updates applied from a Mac.

5

I got rid of the one SanDisk Extreme model almost immediately when I saw that it had no upgrade-ability from Mac. However the other model drives like the WS100T2SB0A (magneto-optical) HDD unit has lasted a whole lot longer and SFAIK is still working. I never was forced into updating firmware on a Mac for that model.

My upgrade to the Samsung T7 2TB, 4TB were far more successful for the same reasons as you mentioned.

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