I recently bought a Samsung SSD 870 EVO 1TB, but it won't fit in my laptop, so I'm using it as an external drive with a USB 3.0 to SATA adapter. I started transferring my data and installed two games: Hearts of Iron 4, which worked fine, and Genshin Impact. However, while downloading Genshin Impact, the drive suddenly became unallocated and wouldn't be recognized by my laptop. I checked Disk Management, and it showed as "unallocated disk." Restarting my PC temporarily fixes the issue, but it keeps happening during downloads, particularly after about 123.2GB of used space. The SSD's health is reported as good, and I've tried to create a new partition, but it hangs indefinitely. I can't understand why it keeps freaking out when I access files. Any thoughts?
3 Answers
Could it be a counterfeit SSD? Sometimes the cheaper ones can have strange issues. Make sure you check the serial number and stuff to confirm it’s legit.
When you format the drive, what file system are you using? With a USB-SATA adapter, it might default to FAT32 which has a 4GB limit on individual file sizes. That could cause issues with a game like Genshin Impact. If you haven’t done so already, try formatting it to NTFS instead, which doesn’t have that limitation. Also, there might be a physical issue with the SSD—it could short-circuit when writing to certain sectors, so consider getting it replaced under warranty if the problems persist.
Yes, I formatted it to NTFS, but I’ll keep the warranty return in mind just in case.
The SSD's health might be okay, but it can also depend on the number of write cycles already done. It’s possible there’s a defect, especially if you notice it hanging when writing data. I’d recommend contacting support and returning it with a detailed report of these issues.
No worries, it's a legit SSD. I checked the serial and everything.