External Harddrives Not Mounting

August 11, 2017 1:44 PM

I have a couple external powered hard drives that won't mount to my Macbook when attached to a USB 3.0 powered hub. I just purchased a new Anker powered hub with more power but still no luck.

The drives are also powered. They are both NewerTech Voyager Q/S3 which is a drive housing that can be used with an unhoused drive. If I plug the drive directly into the Mac everything works fine, but things stop working at the hub.

If I reboot the computer that occasionally seems to resolve the mounting issue. It's like I need to force the computer to search for drives or something. Thanks!

posted by misterpatrick to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Have you tried the hubs/cables on another computer? It could be your Macbook's USB port has lost the plot.
posted by Sunburnt at 3:40 PM on August 11, 2017

There is some issue with macOS and USB 3 hubs. My Anker USB 3 hub only lights up on three ports, even though it's a powered 7 port hub. I worked perfectly before one of the OS updates, and barely works now.

If you search a bit for "Mac OS USB 3 issues" you'll find a number of places offering explanations and some potential solutions, but nothing I've found actually works. Here's one for problems with 10.11. The general consensus seems to be that Apple has made some changes in their USB 3 drivers, and that's broken things for a lot of people.
posted by ralan at 4:34 PM on August 11, 2017

Response by poster: The drives work fine on their own in both USB ports, it's once the hub is involved that things stop working. And again, just the drives the other devices keep working.
posted by misterpatrick at 5:54 PM on August 11, 2017