Question WD Blue 4TB SSD keeps disappearing from Windows/BIOS

[orleans704]

I purchased a 4TB WD Blue SATA SSD three weeks ago, and its disappeared overnight from Windows 10 file explorer (and BIOS) 3 times after formatting and being placed into service. It’s the third disk in my system and replaces a 2TB spinning Hitachi (a secondary, non-bootable drive). I used the same SATA data cable and power supply connector as the Hitachi for the Blue. After a week of use, the first time the Blue disappeared overnight it was in use by a program (not idle or sleeping). I swapped its position with my DVD player (swapped data cable and power connector) and it booted fine. SMART says nothing is wrong with the drive. So I moved it back to its old spot and that also lasted about a week. The second time it disappeared overnight it was idle. So I completed replaced the SATA cable with a new, unsed one. I also move the Blue to a never used power supply connector. That lasted just one night. Again overnight it disappeared. Two reboots and its still missing in Windows and BIOS. The SATA cable and power supply connector appear snug and tight, but after simply touching them a little, the Blue will come back after a boot. Its like a short is occurring but I don’t see how it’s not a fault in the Blue with me using 2 different SATA data cables and 2 different power supply connectors. A pair of which worked fine for years on a Hitachi drive.

 

[Lutfij]

We're going to need a little more information. What is the make and model of your PSU? Make and model of your motherboard? BIOS version for said motherboard? Age of the PSU, assuming that it's been in service for a while? Version of your OS, assuming you're on Windows 10? You might want to rule out the WD drive being faulty by carrying it over to a donor system, and seeing if it exhibits the same behavior on said donor system.

 

[orleans704]

We're going to need a little more information. What is the make and model of your PSU? Make and model of your motherboard? BIOS version for said motherboard? Age of the PSU, assuming that it's been in service for a while? Version of your OS, assuming you're on Windows 10? You might want to rule out the WD drive being faulty by carrying it over to a donor system, and seeing if it exhibits the same behavior on said donor system.

The PSU is SeaSonic S12II 520W (Mar 2011)
The motherboard is Asus Z97-A (Oct 2014)
The BIOS is 2801 which is the latest except for Beta Version 3503.
Its Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.
Sorry, I don't have another system handy. But I've never had any other drives fall out on this system like this. The Blue isn't my only SSD but the 4TB is the largest internal drive (and all in 1 partition).
BTW, the Blue came with the latest firmware according to WD Dashboard.

 

[mdd1963]

If you moved it back to the old position (original cables/mainboard SATA port) and problems return, it will be hard to determine what is/might be wrong...

Swap SATA cables with a drive that has no issues, and test for an extended period...; if impatient, swap mainboard ports as well...

If problems with drive seem to stick with the drive on different SATA data, power, and SATA ports, now you've at least ruled those out....

Edit: touching the cables and having the drive reappear screams mere connection issue...; swap cables entirely, one at a time, to figure out which one...

 

[orleans704]

Blue disappeared again overnight. (Always overnight for some reason.) This time I did not touch the cables because my theory was a loose cable as before it came back after touching the cables or swapping them. This time I did a warm reboot and the drive was still missing from Windows and BIOS. So I powered off, let sit a few minutes, then did a cold boot and the Blue reappeared. So the cables may be a red herring. It should not be an overheating issue as the Blue was not being used and the sides of my case are off.

Again, there is no data loss and SMART says the drive is fine. First time I got a week of service, then a second week, now twice all I got was a day. So since its still under 30 days I'm returning it to B&H. Hopefully just a bad unit, since it gets such rave reviews on B&H and Amazon I'll try again.

Here is what I see in the system logs around the same time for the events over the last 2 nights. I have a system backup scheduled for 1am so that's odd timing for this morning, but the previous morning it was after 5am when the logs first mentioned the missing drive. Error mentioning the drive by name is "The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur in VolumeId: X:, DeviceName: \Device\HarddiskVolume6. Failure status: A device which does not exist was specified." I don't run RAID, BTW. Below are other events at the same time.

disk               6/5/2021 5:21:42 AM  An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\DR2 during a paging operation.

VDS Basic Provider 6/5/2021 5:21:42 AM  Unexpected failure. Error code: 1B1@01010013

VDS Basic Provider 6/5/2021 5:21:42 AM  Unexpected failure. Error code: 1B1@01010013

iaStorA            6/5/2021 5:21:12 AM  Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.


disk               6/6/2021 1:16:03 AM  An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\DR2 during a paging operation.

VDS Basic Provider 6/6/2021 1:16:03 AM  Unexpected failure. Error code: 1B1@01010013

VDS Basic Provider 6/6/2021 1:16:03 AM  Unexpected failure. Error code: 1B1@01010013

 

[orleans704]

I'm coming to realize the Blue disappears during a system backup each night. I use Easeus ToDo Backup. I got a successful full backup on all drives (including the Blue which is about half full) at the end of May to an external USB drive. Then I got several days (almost a week) of successful nightly incremental backups. But for 3 days in a row the backups failed (I think it again was trying to read all the data for a full backup). The backups start at 1am and fail before completion because the drive disappears from Windows. Above logs show one failure at 1:16 and another at 5:21 so the timing isn't consistent.

The Blue won't reappear to Windows or the BIOS with a warm reboot. It takes a cold boot to get the drive back. So the question is this a Blue problem (being a new drive) or is this my system of like 6 years (containing another SSD and HDD)? I've returned the drive so I can try again with another Blue.