2.5 SATA mechanical drive

[simonelombardo]

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[guile82]

(pics are a little too tiny to be readable, you could copy and paste directly an image url and it should be resolved by the forum plugins)

UASP is just the protocol mode that USB to SATA controller is working due to the accelerated USB3 connection while the other seems already built in with a USB interface directly in the drive, so it's excepted to have this kind of difference detected by CrystalDiskInfo.

https://www.seagate.com/files/staticfil ... 98035c.pdf

Your findings are interesting and gave actually an hint! By the product manual, the drive uses 850ma (4.4W) due to having four heads, two platters and technology era. A typical SSD drive is much lower than that.

Low power USB3 port current limit should be 900mA (4,5W) so, if powering USB to SATA interface takes more than 50mA on its own, the flowing current is not enough for spinning the disk motor. Is the SATA to USB interface on desktop connected to an high power USB3 port?
Using the disk with already bundled USB interface instead, there is no additional overhead and it is under the 900mA ceiling.
So... maybe the internal JST plug on the motherboard is just connected to a USB3 host line (just like the Raspberries do), so instead to deliver 1.5A as the standard SATA plug, it delivers also max 900mA. It could be verified easily by tracing the contacts on the mobo or a load test...

If it is the case, a 1Tb disk like the MQ04ABF (https://toshiba-semicon-storage.com/con ... Manual.pdf) with 1 platter, two heads, tops on 638 mA (3,3W), it could work.

(but more the time passes, more I think it's just an overpriced dev board we just paid...)

You should see the images

You are awesome and thanks for helping out.

Yes, when I connected to my tower desktop I used a USB 3.0 port but now I did a test on a 2.0 port with the adapter and the hard disk works the same. ON GK3 I also used a USB 3

I also thought it was amperage related but I have a 250gb seagate hdd drive which only has 451mA and still beeps on the Gk3 (either by usb or SATA) but it works flawlessly on my desktop

Although not a great expert in electronics. The 120gb kignston a400 SSD I used is 5v 1A and works on the GK3. Shouldn't it fail due to amperage?

I think you're right about overpricing but it's a shame as I had high expectations for this mini PC to be my retro console.

I will try to do a load test because I don't want to open the GK3 because I'm already talking to the seller for the return.

Such a closed bios doesn't help with these issues either.

[simonelombardo]

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[guile82]

Is the 250 Gb Seagate disk a ST9250315AS(G) or another model (SATA 1 disk)?

If it is...
https://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/sup ... 28359d.pdf

"Startup current, +5V max" entry says 1A when a +5V (5W then) line is provided. This disk model could make use also to 12V using less amperage - so requiring just that 420 mA (5 W / 12V) you cited - and 3.3V for power saving....but USB3 / bridged SATA / laptop-kinda SATA just delivers the +5V line. As far as I knowm only very recent hard disks uses less than 900mA on 5V for starting the spin process.

The AS400 Kingston SSD: https://www.kingston.com/datasheets/SA400S37_us.pdf tops on 1.535W having so max around 307 mA.

I did a test on a 2.0 port with the adapter and the hard disk works the same

Single USB2 port as standard should have topped at 500mA so basically no mechnical disks could be used. But usually modern desktop EHCI (USB 2.0) host controller has a little bit more ampere tollerance before shutting down the port for oversurge or it's routing to the power supply +5V line. Have you tried to connect the 250Gb disk (if that 5W model) on the SATA to USB controller to a USB 2.0 port?

I'm learning a lot,

To be honest, I just read what it said on the hard drive itself.

Regarding USB 2.0, I used the 1TB disk but later, I will test it with this 250GB hard disk.

The seller responded by saying "According to your problem description, our technical engineer inferred that this is a problem with the product's hardware.
We are willing to exchange the goods for you, would you accept it?"

Do you think I should change and that it could be a technical problem with the device?

[simonelombardo]

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