USB3 Drive Base Disconnecting During Write Cycle

Anonymous
2015-11-29T04:40:25+00:00

OK, this is an interesting problem.

So, I have an external SSD in a USB3 enclosure, and I've been moving my Steam Library onto it.

The SSD is a Samsung EVO 850, 500GB drive. I've tried two different enclosures, a Startech and an Orico. Both behave the same way.

The enclosure is hooked up through the keyboard base of the Surface Book via one of the USB3 ports.

The problem I'm encountering is when the drive is busy writing files the base seems to disconnect and the drive disappears. It eventually remounts, but of course the damage is done... 

To test this issue, I ran Crystal Disk Mark 5 on the external drive, and the read cycle is fine. Once the write cycle begins, it seems to hang up and then suddenly the drive disconnects.

Anyone have any idea what might be going on here?

Surface | Surface Book | Display and screen

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-11-29T19:20:44+00:00

    So, after a few hours of tinkering, it seems to be some odd issue with the USB3 port near the back of the keyboard base. It seems if there is an SD card plugged in, and the external drive is attempting to do large writes, both the SD card and the External drive disconnect. It happens almost all the time, in a few instances it remains connected, but it's more often the drive and SD card drop. This does not happen on the USB3 port right next to the SD card slot... I can only guess it might be a power issue or defect on my Surface Book. I'll need to spend some time talking to the support folks to see what they think.

    If anyone has any ideas, please chime in.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-01T17:44:56+00:00

    Somehow I missed this post when I created mine: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfbook-surfdrivers/surface-book-devices-disconnecting/f70035bd-7aa4-4f9e-88de-47f252002ec8?tm=1448859308876

    But this sounds like the exact same thing, also happening when trying to store Steam games on a USB3 SSD. I've made absolutely no progress in fixing this, but this issue is doing a very good job of corrupting files on my SSD.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-12-01T17:48:54+00:00

    I see someone else with the issue too: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3soyxx/surface_book_and_external_hard_drive/

    It seems he solved the problem with a Y cable, do you have one you can try?

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-12-01T18:16:18+00:00

    I see someone else with the issue too: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3soyxx/surface_book_and_external_hard_drive/

    It seems he solved the problem with a Y cable, do you have one you can try?

    I don't have a Y cable, but I did try using an external powered drive dock (http://amzn.to/1TrQXlT), and it worked fine. It seems like some kind of power interrupt when the drive gets busy. So does that mean I have a defective port on the Surface Book, or is this some kind of design flaw?

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-12-01T18:26:56+00:00

    I haven't tried taking my Surface Book to the store for a replacement (trying to explain this to someone in the store sounds troublesome), but it always seems to me like the power to the entire keyboard gets interrupted randomly, because when this happens the keyboard disconnects briefly.

    I can't see too many people talking about this, so that gives me hope that getting a replacement device would solve the issue, but maybe what we're trying to do isn't so common? Just dumping files on my external drive never seems to cause a problem.

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