Errors in copy operations to portable drive

[Keyser]

Hi

One of these days, by pure chance, I noticed that one file that I copied to my Seagate Expansion 500GB USB 3.0 was corrupted. I compared it to the version in my hard disk and they had different SHA1 checksums.

Then I made an overall comparison of all files in the drive (I use it for backup) and found other files with errors. As far as I know it only happens with large files (> 1GB) since all small files were OK. Even today, I copied an iso with 1.29GB to the drive and then compared the SHA1 checksums only to find they were different once more. I copied the file again and then it was fine.

Has anyone had this kind of issue? Thanks.

[El Heggunte]

Probably there is a firmware OR hardware bug in the USB-adapter. So far I had read only about a similar design flaw in certain cheapo USB-to-IDE/SATA adapters, and the fix was remove a pesky misplaced resistor --- but maybe your problem is not that easy.

[El Heggunte]

FWIW: JM20337 read data corruption – solution

http://bigacid.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/jm20337-read-data-corruption-solution/

[nic2k4]

Use one of the USB ports on the back of the PC or use a different port. Get a better quality USB cable; shorter is better. The front USB ports add an extra length to the cable and often uses ribbon cable which is less resistant to EMI.

If this is a portable drive with a laptop drive (2.5") in it, make sure to use a USB Y cable; the extra power makes the data transfer more stable. The larger drives (with 3.5" HDD) that use a power brick are better for backing up.

[Keyser]

Thanks for your answers.

I'm using a port on the back of the computer and a fairly short USB cable. About The USB Y cable, I'm gonna buy one and try it out.