Macbook still can't eject external drives using supplied Lacie/Western Digital/Seagate/OWC cables

James at 118 wrote:

This problem has existed for years, over many OS updates, causing endless problems. Keeping the OS up to date has never made a difference. All solutions recommended here are workarounds, not proper use of OS setting, as ought to be the case. One repeatedly recommended solution is listing the external disk in Spotlight privacy. Then spotlight does not index the drive. This defeats the purpose of spotlight.

You can use the command line to identify the processes that are still accessing the external drive. Here are my instructions in another post:

Cannot eject USB drive due to unknown pro… - Apple Community

I can see a possibility having a script attempt ejecting a drive, then looking at what kept the drive from ejecting & showing you the processes holding onto the drive so you can decide whether to kill that process or let it complete before finally ejecting the drive. I'm sure it can be scripted to help automate the process a bit to make it more friendly, but I'm no good with Apple Script.

Further, the macbook runs the external disk constantly while asleep, using up the disk's life. This additional problem has probably been the reason I have had multiple Time Machine drives fail, destroying my Time Machine backups. I quit using Time Machine in automatic backups. However this particular drive that won't eject is not even a Time Machine drive. What then might cause that drive to spin constantly? Is this constant use of the drive the reason for the macbook's inability to eject it? What is the value to me of spinning that external drive constantly?

FYI, there is a difference with a Hard Drive sitting idle spinning and actually moving the drive heads for reading/writing data. Usually if you listen closely you can hear the drive heads moving when a Hard Drive is being accessed. Keep in mind servers have Hard Drives running 24/7.

While having the Hard Drive spinning 24/7 may wear the drive....a Hard Drive can still last 5-10 years. The 2.5" laptop type Hard Drives typically have a much shorter lifespan than the large 3.5" Hard Drives especially when they are carried around. More often than not, macOS actually severely shortens the life of all Hard Drives by a very aggressive sleeping & waking of them.

The drive will not eject because the macbook says something is using it. What is using it? The macbook knows exactly what is using that drive. Why does the Macbook not tell me what's using the drive without the recommended solution of using Terminal to find out? Is this nearly useless error message really the only way the OS can respond?

Is this the best that Apple, the richest company in the world, can do? Or is there a real solution built into the operating system that makes ejecting a disk not require a force eject or does not also defeat spotlight indexing? This is a complaint, but it is also a genuine request for a solution. I'm not just venting.

Apple is not known for supplying useful information with error messages. It drives me crazy as well. Apple seems to desire pursuing new features over addressing existing issues or improving the current experience. Some of it is due to people not complaining directly to Apple about the existing faults, and it is also due to Apple making a conscious decision to ignore certain things as well.

You can supply Apple with product feedback here:

Feedback - macOS - Apple

Edit: I forgot to mention you can try configuring macOS to put the drive to sleep, but that option is only available these days when you actually have an external Hard Drive connected. However, like I mentioned....macOS tends to be super aggressive with the sleeping & waking of Hard Drives which can cause a Hard Drive to wear out prematurely.....some drives quicker than others since some drives a very low threshold (IIRC, Seagate 2.5" Hard Drives are the worst in this regard).

I have never had any issue ejecting my external drives but I do not have any interface with spotlight which may or may not be your issue. I do know that using sleep causes all kinds of issues and it is recommended to never use sleep, just have display turn off after a preset time. All my external drives are now SSD design. One thing I have found is that ejecting the drive from the disk utilities menu is more consistent then dragging the drive to the trash or using the disk ejection line for the drive icon menu.