Technical > Computer Hardware Help > external hard drive disconnecting

external hard drive disconnecting

Does it disconnect during use, or just when its sitting idle?

during use. I am trying to transfer 1TB of files to a 2 TB internal drive. And it's really hard to do it while it keep dissconecting

This is fairly difficult to diagnose given the lack of transparency and the number of "man-in-the-middle" ICs and what not. Possibilities include:

1. Not enough power being provided to the drive.

If there is no AC adapter plugged into the enclosure (e.g. the drive is powered off the USB port), then the drive may be intermittently losing power. Even with USB 3.0 there isn't necessarily enough power to drive some disks. Try putting an AC adapter on it and see if the problem goes away. If the enclosure did not provide an AC adapter, then shame on them (voltage match is fine, but the amount of output mA matters a lot; you don't want to destroy the ICs or circuitry in the enclosure by using something that shoves too many amps through it. Not all products have big enough capacitors to limit the input!)

Also related is USB cable length. The shorter the cable = the more power can be delivered to the device. This is also why those USB Y-cables exist; one end which plug into the PC is used for data and power, and the other is used for just power.

2. SATA-to-USB bridge IC used within the enclosure is sub-par. This is fairly common and doesn't matter if you use USB 3.0 or USB 2.0. There's really no good way to troubleshoot this other than to buy another enclosure and see if things improve.

3. USB chipset in the host system could be unreliable. Best way to determine this is to use something like a USB flash drive and test I/O which normally would fail on the enclosure/hard disk. If it works repeatedly w/out issue then you can rule out the chipset.

4. There should be absolutely no SATA cables used inside of the enclosure; the SATA power connector and data connector should be soldered directly on to the PCB, and the external USB connections should also be soldered on to the same PCB. No wires. Here's an offending product.

5. Drive itself may be going bad. Take it out of the enclosure, hook it up to a SATA port directly, and provide me a screenshot of the Health tab in HD Tune Pro (not free version) for that drive.
--
Making life hard for others since 1977.
I speak for myself and not my employer/affiliates of my employer.

reply to jchambers28
should i use the usb3.0 boost that asus has?

My Gigabyte board has something similar. I do not use it because I cannot find concise, technical explanations of what it truly does -- only vague descriptions obviously not written by engineers. There's nothing in the specification about it either, so as such I tend to stay away from it.

I would recommend you try some of my other recommendations/troubleshooting advice above first.
--
Making life hard for others since 1977.
I speak for myself and not my employer/affiliates of my employer.

reply to jchambers28

reply to jchambers28
Have you popped the drive out of the enclosure and hooked it up directly to the mobo via sata?