I recently purchase two 18TB Hard Drives, and I wanted to run them through some testing. When I put them in the dock, they are recognized and powered… but they seem to disconnect frequently. When I try to initialize them to GPT or format them, it fails and crashes and then the dock loses connection to the computer (running windows 11.)
Is there anything I can look at? I am unable to tell if this is an issue with the dock or the new hard drives.
Hi,
Thank you for contacting us, I am sorry these drives are not working as expected in this hard drive docking station.
Are other drives working as expected ( formatting and operating without disconnection ) or does this issue affect drives of other manufacturer and/or model as well?
May I ask the manufacturer name(s) and model(s) of the 18TB hard drives? If they were purchased online please feel free to include a link to the store page and I can get these details from there.
Thank you, I look forward to your reply and we can proceed from here.
Pat
Plugable Technologies
support@plugable.com
Thanks for getting back to me.
Unfortunately I have no other drives to test with at the moment.
These are Seagate Ironwolf Pro ST18000NT001 18TB. They’re 7200RPM 3.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s NAS Hard Drives.
I should mention I’ve got the dock plugged in via USB-C on both ends.
Hi,
Thank you for replying back!
Does the computer have a USB Standard-A port that can be used to test the docking station using the included USB Standard-A to Type-C cable?
This can help to determine if the stability issues can be isolated to the hard drive and dock, or to the USB data cable and USB port on the computer.
Additionally would it be possible to see if this behavior reproducres with another computer? Again this will help to narrow down the issue to either the hard drive dock, hard drive and cable, or to the original computer.
If using a desktop computer, please try connecting to a USB port on the system main-board itself instead of a front-panel USB port. Front panel ports are generally connected to the system main-board with a long USB 3 data cable that is exposed to all of the radio interference generated by the system’s power supply, graphics controller, and system main-board, this can significantly degrade the signal strength and quality of the front-panel port. Additionally using a 1-meter cable connected to the front panel port exceeds the USB 3 10Gbps 1-meter cable length specifications ( by adding the length of the cable within the computer ) and can cause additional performance and stability loss.
Thank you, I look forward to your reply email and we can proceed from here.
Pat
Plugable Technology
support@plugable.com
That’s… an amazing response. Seriously.
I honestly don’t know why I haven’t thought of at least a couple of these… I’m in IT. I blame burnout from work this week lol.
I’ve moved the cable to a second computer. And moved it from the front USB-C to a rear USB-C.
I’ll see what I can do with it from here.
Thank you again!
First hard drive, was able to initialize it just fine in Disk Management, which wasn’t happening before. So, progress. Began a Quick Format, but it failed and disconnected the USB dock. Turning it off and on again brought back the drive, but same results when I tried to format.
I then unplugged the USB-C to C cable and switched to a USB-A 3.2 to port on the motherboard and attempted a format again. That format finished, and I was able to complete a generic self-test that had failed before. So definite forward progress, thank you!
Hi,
Thank you for replying back, I am glad to hear there is some progress! Based on your description it sounds like the USB Type-C cable may not be working as expected with two computers, but the USB Standard-A to Type-C cable is working.
As this affects two computers it could point to a cable related fault. I recommend we check the warranty status of the docking station ( we provide a 2-year warranty on all of our products ), please contact our technical support via private email: ‘support@plugable.com’ with the subject line ‘Ticket #446240 - Attention Pat’ to start the warranty process.
Thank you, and I look forward to your reply email.
Pat
Plugable Technology
support@plugable.com