If you’re buying a new Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra processor, there’s only one reason to spend thousands more than a Mac Studio: the PCle expansion. Unfortunately, there is already a problem. In a rare move, Apple has publicly acknowledged the existence of what looks like a pretty annoying bug affecting the tower’s internal storage.
In a support document published on Wednesday, Apple raises the possibility that owners of the new Pro may unexpectedly see the “disk not ejected correctly” error message. This message normally appears when an external drive is disconnected without safely ejecting it, but in this case it is an internal drive.
The company explains that there is a risk of an internal SATA drive disconnecting from the new Mac Pro after it wakes from sleep. The error can occur if the Mac Pro is put to sleep manually or if it goes to sleep automatically. Apple does not specify whether the problem affects the data on the disc, which could be corrupted if ejected incorrectly.
There is a solution, but it is not ideal. Apple says restarting the Mac Pro will cause it to reconnect to the drive and implies that preventing the device from going to sleep will prevent the bug in the future. (Apple doesn’t say this explicitly, but does offer tips for disabling auto-sleep using system settings.) Clearly, sleep is a useful option for saving power while still allowing the device from waking up quickly, and we can’t imagine customers who’ve spent at least $6,999 on the new Mac Pro will be pleased with this suggestion.
Apple says a fix for this issue is planned “for a future macOS update”, likely macOS 13.4.1. As always, Mac Pro users should keep an eye out for software updates and make sure to keep their machine up to date.
The Apple Silicon Mac Pro is the only Mac that allows all internal upgrades after purchase. The Mac Pro supports up to 8TB of storage, but can be expanded with any of the seven PCIe slots. Apple sells the Promise Pegasus J2i 8TB Internal Storage Enclosure for $400, which lets you connect 8TB of SATA storage for your Mac Pro as well as aftermarket upgrade kits with 2TB ($1,000) , 4TB ($1,600), and 8TB ($2,800) of storage. This is therefore a potentially very costly problem.
The M2 Ultra version of the Mac Pro, the last of Apple’s Macs to upgrade from Intel processors, only went on sale this week, so it’s likely that very few customers have received one yet. The appearance of this support document so soon after launch suggests that some customers had an unpleasant surprise with their brand new device, or that Apple spotted the problem itself and wants to offer advance warning.
