Question New 1TB SSD shows correct capacity in Win 10 File Explorer but can only write 128GB ?

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Ray Walton

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Dec 18, 2013
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I have purchased and installed internally to my Desktop free SATA port a new 1 TB SSD, which correctly shows capacity in Win 10 file explorer but can only write 128GB? However when I start copying data to it (mainly Steam Apps moved across using the Steam Move facility, once it gets to around 128Gb of data it then fails with write errror and he disk is no longer seen in Explorer. I have to recover the SSD using Chkdsk /r which takes about 12 hours !! Then when I try again the same thing happens.

I consider myself a reasonably competent power user for PCs and Windows and go right back to even 386 computers !! I have never had any problems similar to this with installing a new extra SATA SSD drive. I have checked the BIOS and ensured there is no pagefile problem (windows manages this on the main M2 C Drive) . I am at a loss as to why and a good friend of mine, also an IT guy, is also baffled. I have checked my Windows installation with sfc /scannow and that did correct a small error but that was corrected and now reports good integrity yet this new drive still fails.

I have searched for an answer but all problems others report seem to be with File Explorer only reporting a smaller size which is usually an easy to solve problem. But this drive is correctly reported as a full about 960 GB but will only write up to 128GB when it slows right down and then crashes no longer visible in File Explorer or Disk Management. I do eventually get to see it and run chkdsk /r so the drive can be recognised and reformatted into NTFS but then fails again when i write more than 128GB of data to it.

Any help most appreciated. Oh and yes I sent two new SSD drives back and then brought a different make (Sandisk Ultra) from a different supplier and the same thing happens in all cases so it is clearly not a faulty SSD drive ???? Oh and I have also updated the BIOS on my Gigabyte H410M H V2 motherboard to the latest F4 version but same problem remains ??????

I have never before been so baffled as to why thus is happening and my Kaspersky AV shows no viruses either. Without this new drive installed my system is working normally and pretty fast (i3 10400f cpu, 16GB RAM, Aorus GTX1080Ti 11GB graphics card).
 
Thanks but I am unable to do this right now. Currently I cannot see the drive at all in Disk Management. I will need to run chkdsk /r overnight to clear the drive so I can see it again. I can then reformat it and give it a free drive letter.

Does anyone know if Steam could be causing this problem as I want to use this 1TB drive primarily for Steam Flight Sims to replace my old 120GB SSD drive which is now full just with X Plane 12.

This is so weird and has cost me now 3 full days working on this without success.
 
The SSD Drive is a Sandisk Ultra 1TB.But before this I tried 2 x WD Green 1TB drives and returned both of them as faulty with the same symptoms, and got a refund, but clearly it seems the problem is strangely here with my PC ???? That is why I have tried a differend brand and different supplier in case it was just a bad batch of WD drives.
 
https://imgur.com/s4rONs1
View: https://i.imgur.com/s4rONs1.jpg


Okay I left this problematic 1TB SSD plugged into the power with the data cable removed as I read somewhere this will apparently help the disc to sort itself out and become accessible again, strange as it may sound, but I did read that somewhere?? After several hours I shut the PC down and reconnected this SSD to my SATA port and rebooted.

Well the reboot took ages (about 5 minutes) clearly trying to read this problematic SSD but eventually it booted and bingo I could see this drive again allocated to the first free letter J: and the files I had copied across with Steam were all still there except only a small part of the last app folder that was copying when it failed and which was only a few GB of about 100GB it should be.

Anyway I tried writing a small file to it but it was only copying it at about 56KB/s as clearly it saw the disc as no space left although it shows with 824GB of 953GB free. You can see this with the attached image of my DIsk Management screen. As I said it usually gets to only about 128GB of data copied to this 1TB SSD and then it crashes !!! Tried deleting the incomplete folder to see if it would then copy some small files but it has so far taken over 10 minutes and only half deleted saying it will take another 35 minutes !!!

I have never had such a problem before and it appears as though it is a corrupt SSD drive but this is the third new one that has given this same set of symptoms. Has anyone else ever had such a problem or any idea what can be causing this??
 
Ray Walton said:
https://imgur.com/s4rONs1
View: https://i.imgur.com/s4rONs1.jpg


Okay I left this problematic 1TB SSD plugged into the power with the data cable removed as I read somewhere this will apparently help the disc to sort itself out and become accessible again, strange as it may sound, but I did read that somewhere?? After several hours I shut the PC down and reconnected this SSD to my SATA port and rebooted.

Well the reboot took ages (about 5 minutes) clearly trying to read this problematic SSD but eventually it booted and bingo I could see this drive again allocated to the first free letter J: and the files I had copied across with Steam were all still there except only a small part of the last app folder that was copying when it failed and which was only a few GB of about 100GB it should be.

Anyway I tried writing a small file to it but it was only copying it at about 56KB/s as clearly it saw the disc as no space left although it shows with 824GB of 953GB free. You can see this with the attached image of my DIsk Management screen. As I said it usually gets to only about 128GB of data copied to this 1TB SSD and then it crashes !!! Tried deleting the incomplete folder to see if it would then copy some small files but it has so far taken over 10 minutes and only half deleted saying it will take another 35 minutes !!!

I have never had such a problem before and it appears as though it is a corrupt SSD drive but this is the third new one that has given this same set of symptoms. Has anyone else ever had such a problem or any idea what can be causing this??
Click to expand...
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It shows other partitions that Windows hides and has more comprehensive tools to check and repair file system. Check alignment while you are at it.
 
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Thanks for the feedback CountMike.

I have been using Aomei Partition Assistant which I have used for years and also a good free partition tool. Not tried the MiniTool Wizard I must say. However nothing works. I recovered the SSD and deleted the partition, made a new partition and a simple volume, quick formatted with default NTFS. Then rather than the added complexity of Steam I just copied my 500GB Photographs SSD drive folders to this problematic ITB drive and this failed well before 128GB !! So I am wondering if it is not the amount of data loaded but rather the number of files and/or folders that is limiting it somehow, so an indexing problem maybe? It is set up as GPT rather than MBR though not that important for an under 2GB drive though it is a little faster with GPT.

Never checked alignment with an SSD ?? Have to look into that.
 
Are the SATA controller device drivers up to date?
Are there other SSDs connected to the SATA ports that function correctly? Have you tried a different SATA port that is connected to a different SATA controller?
 
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Can you run CHKDSK in read-only mode and save the results to a log file?

Or you can view the most recent logs:

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/find-chkdsk-results-in-event-viewer-logs

It may help to see what kind of file system problems CHKDSK finds. That said, it seems strange that it takes 12 hours to run, unless you are performing a full sector scan, but even then it's still abominably slow.

Could it be that the drive is bogging down during sustained writes due to some anomaly with its pseudo-SLC cache???
 
That is SUPER weird! At first, I was thinking it was a fake drive but you say you've replaced it multiple times, with different drives, from different suppliers. If they all exhibit the same behavior, that virtually rules out an issue with the drive. It's weird that it happens at the same point and is a write issue. I could see if there was a read issue with the source drive, manifesting at the same point. I'd say replace the SATA cable but that seems unlikely to solve it.

For curiosity's sake, why don't you run a full READ scan, using something like HDDScan or Victoria. Even if it passes, see if there are any wild fluctuations on the transfer rate graphs.
 
https://imgur.com/V5HYkbl
View: https://imgur.com/V5HYkbl


Thank you so much for the responses.

fzabcar the read only chkdsk for this drive is attached above. I can only run this after a reboot as the drive was not showing in file explorer but after a reboot and quite a long boot up finally I see the drive J: and can read the files I had already copied to it. Trying to write any more data to it then it crashes and disappears (the PC does not crash BTW) needing another reboot to be able to see it again. The chkdsk finds no problems which is baffling ?? If I reformat the drive then I can write to it at a normal speed for this type of drive but after a while that slows right down and finally fails.

Using Aomei Partition Assistant (latest version) speed without any data on the drive shows a reasonable but not impressive read speed of around 440MB/s and a write speed of 215MB/s much slower than a much older 500GB SSD drive in my system. Once the drive is failing a speed test is difficult to run but onlyshows about 25MN/s read and 5 or so MB/s write !!

Also BwwJ1st well yes I have in my early fault tracing swapped the drive to another SATA III port and even disconnected my other SSD drive and connected this problematic one to the same port and the problem remains exactly the same. So I am happy it is neither a cable or port fault. The problem also arises if I connect this drive via a USB3 docking station, so the problem is somehow with the drive (and the4 same with two earlier brand new ones!) or something weird in the OS which BTW checks out 100% with the sfc /scannow command.

MWink64 Ill try one of those two apps you suggested to see what result I get.

Never have I had such a weird problem, so will be good to get to the bottom of it wiht the fantastic help we always get from this excellent forum.
 
Been running some tests using Aomei Partition Assistant tests and my existing not very old WD 512GB SSD SATA3 Drive has a read speed of around 548MB/s and a write speed of 466MB/s which I assume is pretty normal for an SATA3 SSD.

Now the same speed test on my partially loaded (about 95GB) 1TB problematic new SanDIsk Ultra SATA3 SSD gives me a read speed of only 228 MB/s (less than half the speed of the other SSD drive) and a write speed of 7 to 9 MB/s!!!!!!! This is it seems because it is seeing this drive as full which it is far from reporting 861GB free.

Tried changing the BIOS SATA mode from AHCI to Intel RST but that made no real difference and don't know if it is worth using RST instead of AHCI. Anyone ??

My system has 4 internal mounted drives. A 512GB NVm very fast main system drive, one pretty old but trusty Seagate 2TB spinning hard drive which is working well, a WD 512GB SATA3 SSD for photograph storage, and this new SanDisk 1TB SATA3 SSD which is causing all the problems.

This is doing my head in so please does anyone have any clue as to what the problem is ????
 
I am sure it is not a fake drive as before remember I sent back two WD 1TB SSD drives which had the same symptoms and that is why I chose a different make SanDisk and supplier. Thailand where I live make many of the hard drives here so I doubt it is a fake., but I cannot rule out that all three new SSD drives I have had may all be fakes but I think too much of a coincidence. I need to try a known working 1TB SSD in my PC but I know nobody local here who has one to test.

I am sure it is the same drive chkdsk is testing, and indeed the drive disappears from File Explorer when I remove it.

This is so very weird and frustrating. I really need this drive up and properly working.

BTW from an earlier question yes it took over 12 hours because chkdsk was also checking the whole drive for any bad sectors and thus 12 hours is certainly not excessive.
 
Ray Walton said:
I am sure it is not a fake drive as before remember I sent back two WD 1TB SSD drives which had the same symptoms and that is why I chose a different make SanDisk and supplier.
Click to expand...
Still think, it's fake.
Probably looks something like this inside:

fakeSSD.jpg


Can you show a screenshot from HDtune health?
Use 2.55 free version

HD Tune website

HD Tune
www.hdtune.com
 
SOLVED !

SKyNetRising I think you was dead right. Despite three of these drives, one from a different supplier on the same online sales service, and one drive a SanDisk and the other 2 WD Green, I have to say I have as good as proven they were fake and faulty and not my system at all (see why below). I also noticed this SanDisk SSD drive rattles as though the board inside is loose which raised my suspicions. Also that HD Tune app showed the device as SATA II not III as advertised and thus even when newly formatted adn working for a while I never got more than about 270MB/s read. Anyway this one is also going back for a less than 7 days full refund.

How am I so sure they were indeed likely fakes ?? Well I went up to a big local IT store in a large mega shopping mall locally and purchased one from a nation wide chain reputable IT store called JIB, which I know only sells genuine items, though of course I had to pay about 40% more than the ones I purchased online for the same WD Green 1TB SSD. So I popped this new WD Green SSD into my PC on the same free SATA port I have been using all along, and this time unlike all the other 3 I had to initialise the drive which was promising and what I would normally expect, so I did that as a GPT drive and made a simple volume with NTFS format. The other 3 drives purchased online all did not need initialising and were set up as MBR drives. Bingo this new SSD works 100% and now I have test copied over 500GB of data to it and many folders with many hundreds of small files too so the file count is also very high too. No problem as one would expect, and now much faster and no failing. Read speed is over 500MB/s, no failing or crashes and all is performing as a SATA III SSD drive should.

Message is, if it is cheap then be suspicious. Yes I knew that wise old adage, but these drives looked so genuine I have to say and as a pensioner I am a bit of a cheap Charlie nowadays !!

I wish to thank all those who responded to my cry for help and apologise for wasting your time as well as days of my own time. Great forum this indeed is and one I have been absent on for several years but I will try to make time to pop now and again in to see if I can help others too.
 
SkyNetRising said:
Still think, it's fake.
Probably looks something like this inside:

fakeSSD.jpg


Can you show a screenshot from HDtune health?
Use 2.55 free version

HD Tune website

HD Tune
www.hdtune.com
Click to expand...

Ironically, that's more impressive looking than most modern SATA SSDs.

Ray Walton said:
SOLVED !

SKyNetRising I think you was dead right. Despite three of these drives, one from a different supplier on the same online sales service, and one drive a SanDisk and the other 2 WD Green, I have to say I have as good as proven they were fake and faulty and not my system at all (see why below). I also noticed this SanDisk SSD drive rattles as though the board inside is loose which raised my suspicions. Also that HD Tune app showed the device as SATA II not III as advertised and thus even when newly formatted adn working for a while I never got more than about 270MB/s read. Anyway this one is also going back for a less than 7 days full refund.

How am I so sure they were indeed likely fakes ?? Well I went up to a big local IT store in a large mega shopping mall locally and purchased one from a nation wide chain reputable IT store called JIB, which I know only sells genuine items, though of course I had to pay about 40% more than the ones I purchased online for the same WD Green 1TB SSD. So I popped this new WD Green SSD into my PC on the same free SATA port I have been using all along, and this time unlike all the other 3 I had to initialise the drive which was promising and what I would normally expect, so I did that as a GPT drive and made a simple volume with NTFS format. The other 3 drives purchased online all did not need initialising and were set up as MBR drives. Bingo this new SSD works 100% and now I have test copied over 500GB of data to it and many folders with many hundreds of small files too so the file count is also very high too. No problem as one would expect, and now much faster and no failing. Read speed is over 500MB/s, no failing or crashes and all is performing as a SATA III SSD drive should.

Message is, if it is cheap then be suspicious. Yes I knew that wise old adage, but these drives looked so genuine I have to say and as a pensioner I am a bit of a cheap Charlie nowadays !!

I wish to thank all those who responded to my cry for help and apologise for wasting your time as well as days of my own time. Great forum this indeed is and one I have been absent on for several years but I will try to make time to pop now and again in to see if I can help others too.
Click to expand...

Hey. I guessed they could be fake first! 😛

It's worth noting that WD owns SanDisk and several of their drives use identical components.

While I don't necessarily think it's the case here, people often mistakenly think a drive is fake by the look of the PCB or feel of the drive. Modern SSDs, especially DRAM-less drives, tend to look utterly unimpressive. It's not uncommon to see a small PCB with little more than a controller and a single NAND package. Many 2.5" SATA drives are held together by nothing more than plastic clips, so rattling isn't necessarily a concern. At least some of the better drives (Crucial MX500, Samsung 870 EVO) have DRAM and partially/fully metal cases, that can double as a heatsink. The PCB inside is still generally small, with few chips.

Anyway, glad you got it sorted out. I don't blame you for wasting our time, the fault lies with those who make/sell fake drives.
 
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Thanks MWink64. I agree with you entirely and the lesson here is it does not usually pay to be a cheap Charlie. Oh and yes I too found out that SanDIsk and WD are one and the same in effect.

The new drive I purchased locally from a nationwide retailer is working perfectly, fast, no errors and reliably. 🙂 Now I can get on with living my life again hmmm
 
Ray Walton said:
Been running some tests using Aomei Partition Assistant tests and my existing not very old WD 512GB SSD SATA3 Drive has a read speed of around 548MB/s and a write speed of 466MB/s which I assume is pretty normal for an SATA3 SSD.

Now the same speed test on my partially loaded (about 95GB) 1TB problematic new SanDIsk Ultra SATA3 SSD gives me a read speed of only 228 MB/s (less than half the speed of the other SSD drive) and a write speed of 7 to 9 MB/s!!!!!!! This is it seems because it is seeing this drive as full which it is far from reporting 861GB free.

Tried changing the BIOS SATA mode from AHCI to Intel RST but that made no real difference and don't know if it is worth using RST instead of AHCI. Anyone ??

My system has 4 internal mounted drives. A 512GB NVm very fast main system drive, one pretty old but trusty Seagate 2TB spinning hard drive which is working well, a WD 512GB SATA3 SSD for photograph storage, and this new SanDisk 1TB SATA3 SSD which is causing all the problems.

This is doing my head in so please does anyone have any clue as to what the problem is ????
Click to expand...
How'bout trying - remove the internal 512 WD SSD and replace it with the 'faulty' drive.
 
If I have any doubts as to the legitimacy of any newly acquired Compact Flash, Secure Digital or microSD cards, plus SSDs and USB memory sticks, I run a program called h2tesw.exe.
https://h2testw.org/

H2testw writes multiple 1GB files to the drive until it is full, then reads back the 1GB files and verifies the health and true capacity of the drive.

If you see results like this, everything is OK.
N.B. Don't worry about h2testw failing to test the final Megabyte of disk space.

h2testw_windows.png



If you see results like this, the drive is damaged and/or fake.

failed-h2testw-memorycard-test1.png
 
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