Portable hard drive disconnects while transferring files.

Pretty much like the title says I have a Hitachi Touro 2TB that I bought about two years ago that I use to store films on, I recently upgraded to a new computer with a Gigabyte H87-HD3 motherboard with a couple of USB 3.0 ports. The problem is when I transfer a file which is over 500MB while using the USB3.0 ports the hard drive will disconnect and reconnect and the file transfer will fail. This problem does not happen when I use the USB 2.0 ports on the same motherboard or USB2.0 ports on any other computer I have used. After googling around this problem is not confined to my hard drive, it's very common amongst USB 3.0 hard drives for this to occur and also from googling around I have tried suggestions such as changing power settings for the USB root hub to never go into suspend mode to preserve power and I have installed the most up to date USB3.0 drivers from Gigabytes website.

So, anybody have any suggestions?
Thanks.

Is the external drive solely powered by USB or does it have it's own power source?

Anyway, if it is only USB powered, I would suggest a powered USB hub. That way you take any power supplied by the MB/driver/OS out of the equation. Various driver versions may effect amperage supplied and in this case, newer isn't necessarily better.

Or you could try something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/PCD-Universal-...=cm_cr_pr_pb_t

The theory being that you aren't sustaining enough amps to keep your HDD(s) spinning.

Have you watched the transfer speeds while you're moving a file? If it starts out kinda fast and slowly drops slowly before the eventual disconnect I'd suspect your USB3.0 cable is shit, and is making line noise. Getting a quality USB3.0 cable can make a world of difference in that matter.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by markbarkins

Is the external drive solely powered by USB or does it have it's own power source?

Anyway, if it is only USB powered, I would suggest a powered USB hub. That way you take any power supplied by the MB/driver/OS out of the equation. Various driver versions may effect amperage supplied and in this case, newer isn't necessarily better.

Or you could try something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/PCD-Universal-...=cm_cr_pr_pb_t

The theory being that you aren't sustaining enough amps to keep your HDD(s) spinning.

---

Thanks for the suggestion but the portable hard drive has it's own power supply so that is not the issue, also I didn't mention this in the original post but the issue arises when transferring large files, I can send 60 gigs worth of music files, the largest of which is 30MB.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ragnar

Have you watched the transfer speeds while you're moving a file? If it starts out kinda fast and slowly drops slowly before the eventual disconnect I'd suspect your USB3.0 cable is shit, and is making line noise. Getting a quality USB3.0 cable can make a world of difference in that matter.

---

When I'm transferring a large file it happens so quickly that I can't really check the speed, only that halfway through the transfer does the hard drive disconnect. When I transfer about 29gigs of small files there is a slow but gradual decrease in speed over time.
Thanks guys.

When you got your USB cable new, was it folded into into a tidy bundle and wrapped with a twist-tie? From what I've seen that destroys USB3.0 cables, they should never ever be kinked. Maybe give Monoprice a look and see if they have the kind you need for cheap. Also shorter is better, don't get a 6 foot cable.

is it in FAT type,you can't copy more than 8GB at once

That's a 4GB limitation on FAT. And it would prompt you with a 'not enough space' error, which isn't even remotely similar to the connectivity issue he's having.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ragnar

When you got your USB cable new, was it folded into into a tidy bundle and wrapped with a twist-tie? From what I've seen that destroys USB3.0 cables, they should never ever be kinked. Maybe give Monoprice a look and see if they have the kind you need for cheap. Also shorter is better, don't get a 6 foot cable.

---

I can't remember how the cable was originally packaged, it's been two years since I bought it. I didn't think cables would make that much of a difference since I assumed they were built to take some wear and tear. If getting a new cable is what fixes it then I'll do that, thanks man.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ragnar

That's a 4GB limitation on FAT. And it would prompt you with a 'not enough space' error, which isn't even remotely similar to the connectivity issue he's having.

---

I don't think that's it, because I think he mentioned it works fine running through the USB 2.0 bus.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ragnar

When you got your USB cable new, was it folded into into a tidy bundle and wrapped with a twist-tie? From what I've seen that destroys USB3.0 cables, they should never ever be kinked. Maybe give Monoprice a look and see if they have the kind you need for cheap. Also shorter is better, don't get a 6 foot cable.

---

I like this as the next likely culprit. USB does tend to be a little more prone to be affected by cable quality and length than other digital transfer methods.

So, the new cable arrived and it made no difference. Also prior to ordering the new cable I tried the portable hard drive on a friend's computer which has USB 3.0 ports and the same issue arose.

Weird, sorry I was wrong.

It is conceivable the external enclosure itself is crappy. But tearing those things apart trying a get a hard drive out of them defeats the point of having an external hard drive <_<

Also, I didn't think the cable was at fault since cables should ideally be designed to last for years. I think I'll just use the USB 2.0 ports from now on, I'm just glad it's not a fault with my new motherboard. Thanks for your help anyway.