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
    2015-12-03T01:29:26+00:00

    I dont think it's directly the USB port on the keyboard.  I think it's the connection on the device. I have problems using the official dock when I attach it directly to the device and don't use the keyboard.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-03T03:26:45+00:00

    That's interesting, I didn't know they made a dock for the screen part of the Surface Book...

    So, maybe there is some kind of defect in the Surface Book... At least in mine.

    I'm going to see if I can exchange mine for another one and maybe that will fix this problem?

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-12-03T12:50:36+00:00

    The official dock plugs into the Keyboard's charging port, which is the same as the charging port on the tablet itself. But i cakt really recommend the dock, it has pretty well documented issues just outputting to two displays. Part of me wonders how much of this is just a single issue with that new connextor. 

    Let us know how the return goes. I wqs going to try that myself once I've recieved that Y cable (if it doesnt help)

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-12-03T14:59:05+00:00

    Just an FYI:

    I found that the USB based dock (Targus DisplayLink) makes the external hard disk problem worse, so I suspect it is all interrelated in some way.

    Once you get the Y cable, make sure you try transferring some large amount of data from internal memory to the external storage.

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-12-03T19:18:43+00:00

    It's funny you mention that, I tried it on my StarTech dock, which is also DisplayLink, and it was much worse.

    So, as of right now. I just returned my Surface Book... It was a hard and sad decision for me, because I really liked this machine. This USB thing was the last straw. I could live with the other more obvious software related issues with display driver performance, and even the battery life issue. But me not being able to properly use my USB drives did it in for me.

    I'm really unsure if it's just a defect in my Surface Book. I suppose I could get another one to be sure... But I think I need a break from this machine. I've spent so many hours troubleshooting it, instead of actually working on it.

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