Unusual performance from the hard drive when connected via USB.
Unusual performance from the hard drive when connected via USB.
I'm facing a problem with my external hard drives. I own a Hotway USB 3.0 4x bay enclosure that previously worked fine on a specific USB port. After moving to a new PC, it now freezes when transferring large files or one big file. The enclosure lights flicker rapidly as if trying to access the drive, but it's completely unresponsive. I've tried disabling legacy USB in BIOS, testing different ports, and adjusting settings like Remote Differential Compression and performance mode. Despite running SMART checks, disk scans, and checking for bad sectors, everything seems normal. The drives connect perfectly over SATA. It feels like the USB controller might not be compatible with this enclosure. I've also tried connecting directly to the CPU and the motherboard, but the issue persists. What could be causing this?
My initial idea would be a faulty USB SATA chip. These drives are known for being unstable.
Did you verify if the case accommodates the total HDD capacity? Could this cause a problem with the controller. Since not all drives are the same, it might be the reason your case doesn’t work well with the USB controller onboard. How would things change if you lowered the number of HDDs?
I also considered the possibility. It could definitely be due to the controller being overloaded, especially since it's a 4-bay unit with only two drives connected right now. One drive is an SSHD, which might affect performance, but the problem persists even when I'm not writing to it. It seems like this isn't a rare issue—people online have shared workarounds using different ports or controllers. Maybe my setup just isn’t handling it well enough. I was thinking about purchasing a dedicated USB PCIe controller card, though that feels like an unnecessary cost for something that should function properly out of the box.