[SOLVED] Please help: SSD hanging issue on Win 10 copying to another SSD

mister_t

Distinguished
May 9, 2012
8
0
18,520
Hi folks,

I recently added a secondary 1TB Samsung 860 Evo SSD to my system for storage. However if I try to copy or move files from the primary Samsung 850 Evo 500GB SSD to the new one, the whole system hangs and becomes unresponsive. (Just writing directly to the new drive doesn't cause problems).

I have a SATA controller card with 2 internal ports with the drives connected. I tried different SATA cables, no difference.

Can my current SATA card not handle 2 drives reading/writing simultaneously to one another or something? Should I get a new one?

Any ideas much appreciated.

Thanks!

System spec as requested: Dell T7400 workstation, 2 SSDs, 20GB RAM, 2 Xeon QC CPUs, NVIDIA gfx. Win 10 Pro.
 
Last edited:
Solution
Yep, seems like the SATA card was the problem. I got a new one, but for some reason that one couldn't boot my existing OS drive (maybe a BIOS issue). So I'm now running two cards, my original one for my OS drive and a new one for my storage drive. So far so good, although I have lost my last PCI slot as a result. C'est la vie I guess.

mister_t

Distinguished
May 9, 2012
8
0
18,520
Might be a controller issue or even faulty RAM. You said Xeon's, is the RAM ECC?

Why the SATA card? The motherboard doesn't have enough SATA ports? Are SSD firmware and the drivers including the SATA controller's up to date?

The motherboard is old, thus the SATA card for performance. SSD firmware fully up-to-date on both drives. Samsung apparently doesn't offer drivers for 850 evo, only 860, I didn't want to install a driver that is only compatible with one of the drives (particularly when I've had no issues with the 850). Both drives work ok independently, the only issue is data transfer between them. SATA controller card driver is up-to-date. RAM is ECC, I already did a memtest - no issues there.
 

Satan-IR

Splendid
Ambassador
Considering the firmwares/drivers being up to date and the fact that you have ECC RAM and have done memtest with no errors and you have checked with other SATA cables (somehow eliminating the chance of numerous CRC erros) I'd say it looks like a SATA controller issue.

Either a driver one (conflicts and such) or that the volume and speed of the transfer somehow saturates the buffering therefore creating some sort of bottleneck.

Is TRIM and garbage collection on? You can use Samsung Magician or other software like HD Sentinel or CrystalDiskInfo to check SMART status of the drives. See if there are any errors there (such as CRC errors, uncorrectable error counts, ECC error rate etc.).

Other thing is connect drives to the motherboard SATA ports (if any avilable) and see if this works without hangs and such. If it works fine it somehow confirms the SATA controller being the culprit.

Also you said 20GB RAM. Are you mixing different modules? Did the system came like this or have you added RAM that was not identical to what it had first?
 

mister_t

Distinguished
May 9, 2012
8
0
18,520
TRIM is on, SMART reports all OK. RAM is all the same brand, I added more than what it came with originally. But I haven't touched the RAM for years and it has been working fine with the single drive.

I think at this point, I might as well try a new SATA card. Thanks for your time.
 

mister_t

Distinguished
May 9, 2012
8
0
18,520
Yep, seems like the SATA card was the problem. I got a new one, but for some reason that one couldn't boot my existing OS drive (maybe a BIOS issue). So I'm now running two cards, my original one for my OS drive and a new one for my storage drive. So far so good, although I have lost my last PCI slot as a result. C'est la vie I guess.
 
Solution