Is USB 3.0 flaky? External HDDs keep disconnecting randomly

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi folks,

I'm experiencing the damnedest thing... it looks like the most recent batch of USB 3.0 external drives/enclosures is subject to frequent random disconnects.

Until relatively recently, I used to buy both external 2 TB drives, as well as barebone drives, used in enclosures and/or HDD docks. They were all USB 2.0 - I use them for large storage, anyway, so transfer speed is not an issue.

However, I've been buying 3 TB drives and USB 3.0 enclosures, and now they're more than a headache than they're worth... I'm experiencing frequent, random disconnects, and I have no idea why.

The problem seems to be widespread, there are quite a few people complaining about this in the 'net.

Here's one example: http://community.wdc.com/t5/Externa...keeps-randomly-disconnecting-HELP/td-p/477224 (and yes, I followed almost all of those suggested fixes, too, except for the driver rollback)....

Am I the only one on AT who has problems with this HDD size and/or interface?

 

[GWestphal]

Can you provide some information about the computer, os, external drive?

I had a western digital that disconnected on USB 3.0, but I was also running it on a hackintosh with experimental USB 3.0 drivers. I haven't tried it in over a year. But it worked fine over USB 2.0.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

i5-2500k, ASUS P8Z68-V LE, 16GB RAM... Win7 64-bit Ultimate.

External HDDs:
- WD My Book family (both USB 2.0 and 3.0)
- Seagate (Expansion and Back-up Plus models) both USB 2.0 and 3.0

Barebone drives: both WDs and Seagate, in Thermaltake dock and Mediasonic USB 3.0 enclosure (with 3 TB support).

Observations:
1) If I connect any these drives to USB 2.0, there's no problem. It's only the 3.0 ports that disconnect.
2) The external WDs seem more prone to disconnection than the Seagates. In fact, I just realized that neither of the external Seagates has ever disconnected by itself, regardless of whether it was plugged into a 2.0 or 3.0...
3) By contrast, once we're talking about barebone drives in the dock and/or enclosure, any drive (regardless of manufacturer) can spontaneously disconnect itself.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

How long are the cables you use?. I have had problems with longer (2m+) ones...

I have also had this kind of problem with cheaper USB3 cables. USB3 seems a lot more sensitive to cable quality compared to USB2.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

These are the cables that the drives/enclosures themselves came with. I know for sure that WD uses proprietary cables (on the HDD end), can't remember if the Seagates do as well.

I'm also sure that none of them is longer than 1.5 m; in fact, the cable from the enclosure is about 90 cm long...

 

[Insert_Nickname]

These are the cables that the drives/enclosures themselves came with. I know for sure that WD uses proprietary cables (on the HDD end), can't remember if the Seagates do as well.

I'm also sure that none of them is longer than 1.5 m; in fact, the cable from the enclosure is about 90 cm long...

Just checked, your board uses the same Asmedia ASM1042 as my board does. The first driver releases where a real mess, incompatibilities left and right...

First update drivers, if that does not work, try updating the firmware.

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/asmedia.htm

 

[GWestphal]

I tried updating the firmwares too on my WD drive and well it just never worked. I think it might have something to do with the USB controller on the enclosure not handling sleep/standby correctly.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

@Insert_Nickname: Thanks, will try the drivers/firmware. I just hope I'm not going to screw it up even worse...

So, I gather that my suspicions are correct: USB 3.0 hardware/software is still half-baked, and may or not work correctly with something as basic as external storage. Might as well use USB 2.0 and eSata...

Wonderful

 

[corkyg]

USB 3 is supposed to be a more efficient power manager than USB 2. It is supposed to sense when no data is being sent, and can then shut off power for that device. Could this be what is happening? Are these externals designed for USB 3?

 

[AnitaPeterson]

USB 3 is supposed to be a more efficient power manager than USB 2. It is supposed to sense when no data is being sent, and can then shut off power for that device. Could this be what is happening? Are these externals designed for USB 3?

That shouldn't be the case. I've had the HDDs suddenly disconnect while I was playing movies off them, and while transferring large amounts of data from one to another...

 

[vailr]

1) If I connect any these drives to USB 2.0, there's no problem. It's only the 3.0 ports that disconnect.
2) The external WDs seem more prone to disconnection than the Seagates. In fact, I just realized that neither of the external Seagates has ever disconnected by itself, regardless of whether it was plugged into a 2.0 or 3.0...
3) By contrast, once we're talking about barebone drives in the dock and/or enclosure, any drive (regardless of manufacturer) can spontaneously disconnect itself.

1. The enclosures (other than the external Seagates) that you're using seem to be problematic. I use a NextStar3 (USB 3.0 & eSATA) enclosure that seems to work fine (via USB 3.0 with an Hitachi 1 Tb HD installed).
2. The USB 3.0 port driver may also be a factor. My dual-boot Windows 8 64-bit/Windows XP 32-bit system (Gigabyte Z77-UD5H) has an odd USB 3.0 port quirk: a USB 3.0 flash drive (Team Model F108, 16 GB) works fine on a USB 3.0 port in XP, but cannot be read at all using the same USB 3.0 port under Windows 8. Moved to a USB 2.0 port, it again works fine. Another USB 3.0 flash drive (Mushkin 32 Gb) can be read normally (Windows 8), where the Team 16 Gb drive cannot.

 

[Termie]

I've had lots of problems with running external USB3.0 hard drives off the front USB3 ports on my case. My USB3.0 drives also crash my router, which has USB2.0 ports for network storage.

I'd try a few different rear ports to see if any are more stable, but overall, I have to say I haven't been that impressed with USB3.0.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I'd try a few different rear ports to see if any are more stable, but overall, I have to say I haven't been that impressed with USB3.0.

You can say that again. The only controller that work, sort of, as advertised is the Intel one...

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Just out of curiosity... are there any add-on card that have the Intel controller?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Just out of curiosity... are there any add-on card that have the Intel controller?

There isn't, as its integrated in the 7-series PCH. Intel does not make a standalone controller unfortunately...

 

[Sporinator]

This problem is just INSANE!!

I've bought 3 USB 3.0 Ext. HDD's (2 WD & 1 Seagate) over the last 2 years and was using them on computers that only had USB 2.0.

Not one single problem, EVER.

Just built a Xeon Ivy Bridge Workstation with Intel USB 3.0 ports and I have CONSTANT RANDOM disconnects when connected to the Intel USB 3.0 rear ports or the case's front 3.0 ports that are plugged into Asus Intel USB 3.0 MB header.

As above poster noted, even during file transfers or streaming movies they will disconnect. Both the WD & Seagate drives.


I have disabled ALL USB power/sleep/hibernate functions in EVERY place possible.


Even got desperate enough to install the Seagate Disk Manager to turn it off there in case it was a FIRMWARE setting on the drive itself or the enclosure PCB.

NO JOY!!!


As stated above, if I plug them into the USB 2.0 ports they stay on NO PROBLEM. But, I only get like 40 to 60 mbs transfer vs. the 110 to 200 mbs that I get with the 3.0 port.


I picked up two new 4TB Seagate externals with the new build and of course they too are acting up.


I picked up a Startech PEXUSB3S400 4 individual powered port PCI 2.0 card that uses the Renesas Electronics USB drivers so that I could have ALL my external USB 3.0 drives hooked up and running at FULL SPEED.

The card is GREAT and ATTO shows the drives running just as fast on the Startech Card and they do on the Intel MB ports with the Intel USB 3.0 drivers.

But again, no matter what/which USB 3.0 port I'm hooked up to they still randomly disconnect. driver obviously doesn't matter either.

I'm running Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and have the latest Asus BIOS update along with the latest Intel USB Controller drivers.


This is just ridiculous!!



If anyone has a solution to this or has at least made progress in extending the amount of time between disconnects please post it up in here.



I just started to tackle this about 3 days ago. I'll post up again if I make any headway.


P.S. YES, all of "my" external drives have their own power brick. But as mentioned above, the USB 3.0 card is powered with a SATA connector from my SeaSonic Platinum 1000 PSU. So, POWER to the drives is NOT the issue.


Quote from above product page:

"Built-in optional SATA power connector, provides up to 900mA per port for USB 3.0 devices (500mA for USB 2.0)"

 

[Insert_Nickname]

If anyone has a solution to this or has at least made progress in extending the amount of time between disconnects please post it up in here.

This is properly going to sound ridicules, but have you tried shorter cables?. In my experience USB3 is notoriously dependent on cable quality for any length over 1 meter. This includes the length from your internal header to the socket. 3 meters is possible but requires a good quality cable, not the crap OEMs like to stick in the box...

 

[Sporinator]

This is properly going to sound ridicules, but have you tried shorter cables?. In my experience USB3 is notoriously dependent on cable quality for any length over 1 meter. This includes the length from your internal header to the socket. 3 meters is possible but requires a good quality cable, not the crap OEMs like to stick in the box...

Thanks, but I'm using the 1 meter cables that come with them. No need for longer cables in my setup.

Getting better 3rd party cables is on the "tick" list as I troubleshoot this issue.


Although, I did some upgrading last night and have only had ONE USB 3.0 EXT HDD hooked up and so far it has NOT disconnected since I installed the Seagate HDD Manager software and turned OFF the Power Management function in it.

I'll know more in the next few days after I get the other drives hooked back up to the system.

 

[VirtualLarry]

https://twitter.com/jarredwalton/status/330165342397661186

 

[Bubbaleone]

That was certainly an eye opening little video..thanks VirtualLarry! And here all this time I've been trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong with my setups. Really makes me wonder what exactly USB Implementers Forum, Inc. has been up to.

 

[escrow4]

I had my front panel Intel USB 3 ports (H77 board) running at USB 2 for some demented reason. So I went into the BIOS, made sure everything USB 3 was Enabled (not Auto), then disabled driver enforcement and installed Intel's Win 7 USB 3 drivers with a custom .inf, then enabled all write caching settings in Device Manager.

BOOM! From 28MB/s to just over 100MB/s on a 1TB WD Elements, and 65MB/s+ on a 2TB WD external. Why is USB 3 support so poor? Why do we still have USB 2 at all? Why is a generic XHCI driver so hard to write? Mystery . . . .

 

[mikeymikec]

I haven't used USB 3.0 a great deal, the only problem I had with it is that if a device is connected while Windows 7 was already running, it would connect at USB 2.0 rather than 3.0 speeds. Booting with the USB 3.0 enclosure/drive connected would result in 3.0 speeds. That may have been an enclosure issue, I'm not sure.

I hope that USB 3.0 is better than eSATA, I've had quite a few problems with the latter if a problematic drive is connected (system stability issues), whereas the same drive on USB 2.0 doesn't affect system stability at all. It could be the enclosure or the eSATA chip on my board of course.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

https://twitter.com/jarredwalton/status/330165342397661186

I have a few comments on that video...

1) As Jarred pointed out this is NOT particular to Intel chipsets. AMD, ASMedia and NEC controllers have random disconnects too. It sometimes help to disable power management on them though. As I noted, it can also be the cables. Especially cheaper, long ones (1m+).
2) USB3 dropping to USB2 speed, at least on Win8 has something to do with the new way windows is handling user login. Windows 8 has a generic xHCI driver built-in, for some reason it can't handle that the user state is saved when shutting down. It needs either a full reboot or a complete shutdown to restore the USB3 connection. This happens on my HTPC and is 100% repeatable...

 

[mfenn]

I had my front panel Intel USB 3 ports (H77 board) running at USB 2 for some demented reason. So I went into the BIOS, made sure everything USB 3 was Enabled (not Auto), then disabled driver enforcement and installed Intel's Win 7 USB 3 drivers with a custom .inf, then enabled all write caching settings in Device Manager.

BOOM! From 28MB/s to just over 100MB/s on a 1TB WD Elements, and 65MB/s+ on a 2TB WD external. Why is USB 3 support so poor? Why do we still have USB 2 at all? Why is a generic XHCI driver so hard to write? Mystery . . . .

Performance improvements are to be expected when you tell the driver to not bother actually sending the writes to disk.

 

[Charlie98]

I have 2 different Seagate GoFlex 3.0 external drives I use as a rotating backup, they get plugged into the 3.0 rear mobo ports and work fine, but there is an issue with it when I plugged my wifi antenna into the 3.0 port... it kept losing connection, I'm guessing something to do with the power management someone else mentioned.

My 2nd GoFlex (a 7200RPM drive) writes at about 95MB/s, the other (a 5400RPM) a little slower. This is on either one of the machines in my sig, the HTPC by using the front case 3.0 port.