USB 3.0 Hard drive enclosure stalling at random moments.

I suspect that the problem may have been either a loose USB connection (I have re-connected the USB cable to my computer, and made sure it is securely plugged in) or the USB selective suspend setting (which I have now turned off). I have now created a new backup image on the drive and verified it, then subjected the drive to over an hour of copying to other drives and another two image verifications (all while using a USB 3.0 port). It didn't stop working at any point.


I could be wrong, and the problem could still exist, but I see no evidence of that at this point. If the problem returns, I might return here if I believe this forum can be of further help.

Thanks to everyone for their help.

Hi there

If you are using HDD enclosure with older HDD's in them and using as essentially "JBOD" device then you need to ensure there's PLENTY OF POWER -- although these enclosures usually have their own power supply you still need to ensure the USB 3 port has enough power too -- so IMO the best way of using these is actually to connect them to a computer via a powered USB hub.

That in general always seems to work.

So many people on these boards rabbit endlessly on about "Drivers" --these days unless you have legacy hardware or really exotic stuff Windows will find anything it needs --long gone are the days where you had to search the whole Internet to find drivers etc.

All these external HDD enclosures will work OOB without any extra software needed to be loaded.

Any special Drivers if required will be included with the product -- some MOBOS for instance have some special drivers or Nvidia GPU cards. If you don't get a DVD then there will be a web link.

I've seen a whole bunch of these external HDD enclosures - both 2 and 4 Bay ones and NONE has ever needed drivers to be loaded on Windows.

Cheers
jimbo

Hi there

@hbenthow

In theory a powered USB port from the computer should be OK - but when it comes to HDD drives - these can consume a LOAD of power and the internal power supply of the USB3 enclosure - especially if you've got the HDD's running in any sort of RAID mode might not be enough- remember you could have say 4 concurrent HDD operations -- also the Host computer needs more work as it has to have "dynamic port detect" (which all modern computers have on USB ports) to detect from a single USB entry which HDD the I/O is directed at.

Using a POWERED Hub ensures there's always enough "Juice". Some of the cheaper HDD enclosures have really cheap and nasty power supplies barely "man enough for the job" - especially at full load.

For typical HDD's - especially older ones with small cache sizes the USB ports will be MORE than fast enough - a USB3 port is well capable of getting HDD throughput to around 120 - 180 Mb/s (bits) --there's no way on these sorts of enclosures you are ever going to get the latest 6 Gb/s which I think is the theoretical maximum data transfer (for e-sata - if your enclosure can connect to an e-sata port).

For file serving - etc etc that speed is plenty. Even over a Wifi network an INTERNAL HDD won't give you much over 30 - 40 Mb/s (if you are lucky !!!).

I suspect it's either a power or a defective HDD problem --ideally you should use identical capacity / quality HDD's in these enclosures as well - if you have a 4 Bay enclosure you can use different sets / types of HDD's but use them in pairs - i.e similar (preferably) identical HDD's in each pair.

I've had cases where the Host computer wouldn't see the HDD enclosure at all (either on USB2 or 3) but worked immediately when I connected via a powered hub.

Also ensure that the powered hub has at least 1 "charging port" on it as one of the ports - that's the one you should plug your enclosure in to.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

I suspect it's either a power or a defective HDD problem --ideally you should use identical capacity / quality HDD's in these enclosures as well - if you have a 4 Bay enclosure you can use different sets / types of HDD's but use them in pairs - i.e similar (preferably) identical HDD's in each pair.

I've had cases where the Host computer wouldn't see the HDD enclosure at all (either on USB2 or 3) but worked immediately when I connected via a powered hub.

Also ensure that the powered hub has at least 1 "charging port" on it as one of the ports - that's the one you should plug your enclosure in to.

I'm not using any sort RAID array or even multi-bay enclosures. The enclosure I had trouble with is just a single-disc enclosure.

I'm not currently 100% certain whether the problem has been solved, but it hasn't shown signs of returning for now.

In your experience, has a slightly loose or crooked USB connection to the computer ever caused an issue like this? I suspect that the plug having been slightly crookedly plugged in may have been the problem, but I'm not certain whether this can be the case.

Could you recommend a high-quality but affordable powered USB hub with charging ports?

EdTittel said:

I've had pretty good luck with Newegg's house brand Rosewill. Here's a forinstance that works fine for USB hub purposes: Rosewill RHB-420 Aluminum Mini USB 3.0 3-PORT Hub Plus 2.5" SATA I/II/III (6.0 Gb/s) SSD/HDD Adapter-Newegg.com. Try this Newegg search for other options.
HTH,
--Ed--

PS: If you jump on the first item, read the reader reviews to get the inside scoop on getting the SATA drive connector to work properly. It's not exactly plug'n'play, but then, I don't use it, either.

Hi there

anything by ANKER is usually great too -- I've also used USB-->LAN adapters from them -- no probs whatsoever

I go for the slightly more expensive Aluminium ones rather than the perfectly OK plastic cheaper stuff (LAN--USB, USB 3 multi-port) etc - but that's just me --hopefully in my older years I'm not getting into the Apple fanboi mindset !!!).

Cheers
jimbo

For the time being, I'll hold off on getting a hub, until I'm fairly certain whether the measures I have taken thus far have fully solved my problem. If the problem reappears, I'll keep the advice about the hub in mind.

Thank you all for the help.

I (and others from posts on a recording forum) had problems with USB 3.0 and a MOTU 896mk3 Hybrid recording interface unit. I would get drop outs with it connected to a USB 3.0 port (both Intel and ASMedia). Others with USB interface MOTU devices apparently have the same problem, according to the recording forum. Connected to a USB 2.0 port and it works fine, no drop outs. I have many other USB devices, including an old wireless DAW controller that only has Vista drivers, that work perfect on USB 3.0 ports.

In the case of the hard drive enclosure, I would suspect the enclosure since it apparently worked OK on a 2.0 port.

As a side note, I recently built a new PC for recording and all it has is USB 3.0 ports so I bought a PCIe Firewire 400/800 card with the T.I. chipset and am using the MOTU 896mk3 Hybrid with Firewire and works fine.