Trimming an External HDD? Maybe a W10 Pro bug?

Hello folks -

I found the possible solution to the interest of Western Digital and Dell.
I changed the drive to another USB 3.0 port of the back of the chassis.

Why this worked is beyond me and them. Perhaps that original USB port did not PNP properly.
When I have a moment, I will purge and re-PNP all of the USB drivers.

Tested for two days. Still working fine.



P.S. One other thing. If you need an extension for the WD MyPassport, or any other portable storage device, replace the entire cable with a longer one rather than joining two together - there could be signal loss or interference.

I suggest Cables To Go (C2G), P/N 54176 which is a 1 meter USB 3.0 cable with A Male to Micro B Male connectors. Other sizes are available to suit your needs.

Here is the link -

Code:

https://www.cablestogo.com/product/54176/1m-usb-3.0-a-male-to-micro-b-male-cable-3.3ft

I ordered it directly from Amazon and saved $5 USD! C2G is great but overpriced.

Footnote:

I purged the USB drivers and they all PNP'ed normally.
Culprit is a bad cable from Monoprice. Going to switch to another vendor.

The C2G cable mentioned in my above post solved the issue.

That's all!

Hello there!

Well, I finally have the real answer to my question.

My post #11 above was only part of the problem because it was erratic.

Had to escalate up to WD 3rd Level Technical Support, and they said that TRIM can be used on a HDD!

Please follow the link below to know more about TRIM Command Support for WD External Drives:

Answer ID 26014# - TRIM Command Support for WD External Drives:

Code:

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebas...px?ID=26014&s=

Very interesting...

Hope that this information helps someone besides me!

eLPuSHeR said:

That's very interesting but I still don't know what are the benefits of TRIM for an HDD drive.

Well, even in mechanical drives, files are not deleted entirely, only blocks/sectors marked as usable in file table, so Trim (on so enabled HDDs) maybe just writes 0s to them. Just a wild guess. When you secure erase a HDD by writing 0s it does get a bit faster than by just erasing or fast formatting it.

Sounds like they are talking about an M-Sata drive, one that has a small SSD built into it and that is what TRIM applies to. At leat that's the way I read it.