Sony A7IV files might be ruining my SSD, any ideas?

[Pianistinator]

I was using my Sony A7IV. I formatted the SD card in the Mac using an SD card adapter to USB-C. It was going well for weeks, then suddenly it wasn't showing as useable storage. It came up with the options to Eject, ignore or initialise. I took the SD card, put it back in to my camera, formatted it, no problems. Then, after going on holiday and filling up my SSD (Samsung T7) the issues are now occurring when I plug in the SSD. I suspected the problem was the Sony A7IV files. So I transferred them all to a MicroSD card and guess what? The SSD is now working on my Mac.

Any ideas what's causing this? The SSD is APFS, but should still work, and it works with my Android phone and Windows PC still. Thanks!

[daveyh64]

It is unlikely the Sony image files are at fault, they are just files after all.

It could be the way you are formatting your SSD, SD card or other disks using Disk Utility on your Mac.

In its normal state Disk Utility will only show the Volumes of the devices attached to your Mac.

If you go to View in the menu bar and click from the drop down menu you will see Show All Devices,

click on that to activate it.

In Disk Utility in the left hand column you will now see the Disk (usually the manufactures name) and indented below the Volume (the name you have given the device).

When formatting it is important you select the Disk and not the Volume, so if you were to format your Samsung SSD you would highlight the Disk probably called SamsungT7....(or similar). 

Click on Erase, from the drop down give the device a name.

At Format I would not choose APFS, I would only choose this if the device/ disk is going to be used as a bootable disk with a macOS operating system on it.

If you are only using it as a storage device I would choose one of the other options.

If the device is only to be used with Macs,

Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Scheme: GUID Partition Map

If the device is to be used across a range of platforms/ or devices

you need to find out which formats your other devices can read but nominally

I would select this.

Format: exFAT (no limit on file size)

Scheme: Master Boot Record 

With SD cards that are going to be used in a camera, (Sony or otherwise) using Disk Utility

highlight the Disk as it appears in the left column click Erase, give the device a name.

Format: MS-DOS (FAT), this is FAT 32 which has a file size limit of 4GBs

Scheme: Master Boot Record

And always remember to then format the SD card after inserting in the camera.