DELL XPS 15(9550) and download problems to USB 3.0 external hard drives

I just wanted to see if anyone else was having this problem with the 9550. My specs are 512GB PCIe drive, 32GB RAM (Crucial Upgrade) and the standard GTX Video Card. Whenever I try to download large 4K video files (say over 4 -6 GB each from the system drive or an external XQD card) to a USB 3.0 external drive the download starts off ok and after a few seconds the speed of the download goes to 0 and the drive hangs and eventually dismounts. I have tried switching to high performance mode and write caching for the drives and this improves the size of the GB download from 4 to about 8 or 10 but it still fails after that.

I have Windows 10 PrO with all the latest updates. BIOS and CHIPSET are all the latest. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the USB controller drivers and no go.

The thing is that I was using these same drives with the 9350 with no problem with downloads. Now the 9550 and I have serious problems making external drives useless for downloading large files .

Now if I were to download from the external drives to the system PCIe drive there is no problem and they work fine playing 4K video files.

Anyone have a similar experience? I have tried DEll support - absolutely useless. GTechnology support - useless.

 

I'll bet it is a file system issue.

What filesystem is your iab drive currently formatted to use?

What happens when you download a >4GB file to your local drive (SSD), and try copying that to the USB flash drive?

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

Forgot to mention in my original post - everything is NTFS (reformatted several times) and GUID. I'm well aware of the FAT 4GB limits.

When I copy from the USB 3.0 external hard drive (7200 rpm hard drive not USB flash drive) to the main SSD (PCIe) there is no problem but when I copy back to the external drive from the SSD is when the problem occurs - it goes through very fast (like 1.2GB/sec) and then slows down to 100 then 50 then 20mb/sec and then quits

 

I was having similar issues with several USB 3 Ethernet adapters (hangs, weird fluctuations in speed) until recently. Seems latest Dell and/or Windows Updates resolved it.

I've also had issues in the past with external USB 3 drive enclosures not getting enough power from USB ports, causing freeze-ups, etc. Usually power needs to be supplemented with a USB Y connector or some other means. Max load for USB 3 is 900mA. At 5V this is only 4.5W.

Personally, I'd really like to know the max amperage that the 9550 USB ports are capable of.

And, if there's a powered USB 3 hub that can supply, say, 10W or so for each USB port so attached external USB drive encloses get enough power.

 

My drives all have separate power adapters - theG Raid minis have power plugs and the G driver ev220 has a separate USB power cable that I plug into an iPhone charging plug - perhaps I should plug it into the iPad charging plug with higher voltage - it just seems these drives are not able to keep up with the data being fed to them by the system. I haven't tried the G raid minis with performance mode and write caching enabled - maybe that will do the trick . I really intend to eventually have the Sandisk Extreme 900 2TB external drive (USB 3.1) and I would think that with 850 mb/s read/write it should keep up.

 

...maybe it's a USB 3.1 Gen 2 compatibility issue with it's 10Gbps max speed?

 

The drives are not 3.1USB - they are 3.0 drives and I'm plugging them into the 3.0 ports on the XPS. I think it may be a basic USB 3.0 driver issue in Windows 10 that hasn't been worked out yet - I had an XPS 15 9350 and the exact sane drives under Windows 8.1 had absolutely no issues

 

I think you're right about it being a driver issue.

Note the 2 USB ports on the XPS 15 9550 are spec'd as 3.1 Gen 2 and capable of 10Gbps. However, they should be backwards compatible with 3.0.

EDIT: Correction: 9550's 2 USB ports are spec'd as 3.0.

 

Pardon my ignorance but don't 3.1 have to have USB-c type connectors - I just haven't seen in the Dell literature that these 3.0 ports can handle 3.1 speeds.. I just hope Sandisk gets off their b.... And release the overdue 900 extreme series

 

Sorry, mis-read specs, wishful thinking, and maybe color blindness on my part.

2 USB 3 ports on the 9550 are USB 3.0, according to spec. If they were 3.1 Type-A, they "should" be teal blue / turquoise rather than blue, I believe. (2 USB 3 Ports on 9550 don't appear to have any color at all.)

 

I use a Seagate backup plus fast external 4Tb HDD. It are actually 2x2Tb 2.5 HDD in raid0, linked through a USB 3.0 adapter. The drive (so 2 HDD's on 1 USB 3.0 port) works flawlessly with my 9550, on both USB3.0 ports. Also works great on a generic chinese bus powered USB3.1c hub (3x usb 3.0 + 1x Gb ethernet). Tried to push that generic hub to the limit and connected the Seagate 4Tb AND two WD 2Tb 2.5 drives. They all worked nicely.

But: the 4Tb Seagate drive would not work on my Dell DA200. That USB port on the DA200 is underpowered for that drive.

 

I think the problem was with the G-Technology drives - I bought a WD My Passport 3 TB portable drive and also a Sandisk 900 Extreme 2TB drive and they both work fine. Probably a driver conflict with G-Techs - both drives were not USB powered (GTechs) - powered by AC adaptor.

 

I'm having the same problem with my external SSD hard drive enclosure. If I use an external hard drive with its own power source, I don't have any data transferring problem.

 

I have this problem with an Icy Dock Black Vortex with a 6TB HGST Deskstar NAS drive inside. I started this thread to troubleshoot my issue: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ure-into-right-usb-port.790146/#post-10232703

A strange thing I've discovered is that Ultracopier will write files to the drive ok and quite fast, and I haven't gotten a failure "yet", although it may be hanging periodically like it does with other copying software.

Both the Windows native copying utility, and Teracopy will fail, due to the drive going offline. Teracopy seems to cause failures quicker in most cases. Also, this issue can knock things like the Bluetooth radio offline with it, although I don't know if that happens every time. Actually, after it happens, I usually have to restart the machine to get my Bluetooth devices connected again.

I'm guessing it's some kind of driver error like this (You may need to confirm a security exception, but the site seems to be fine): https://www.npcglib.org/~stathis/bl...tal-my-passport-usb-3-0-disconnects-randomly/

Are we just stuck with this issue until Dell "maybe" fixes the problem? Honestly, at this point I think I'd be fine with using a USB 2.0 cable if that kept the drive from going offline. I don't have one though. Does that solve the disconnection issue for you all?

EDIT: Also, has anybody tried switching from RAID to AHCI mode? I saw some UASPStor warnings in the Event Viewer, I'm guessing from when the enclosure would get knocked offline, with this kind of message: Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort13, was issued.