Vero V messing up my SSD

Help and Support Vero V
1

Are there any known issues with SSD’s?

I plugged in my NETAC ZX20 and watched some 3D movies with no problem, but the next time I switched it on the Netac was not recognised. I then plugged it into my Laptop and it was also not recognised.

Disk manager said Unallocated and Not Initialised, it would not initialise and threw up an error.

I did a very long erase process (10 hours) with a different software to eventually get it to initialise and allocate space.

It then worked fine copying and playing on the laptop.. until I decided to try in in the Vero V again and it didnt recognise it and broke the SSD again.

My Samsung SSD has no issues.

2

I think this can be already a good indication. No there are no problems know between Vero and SSD’s.

And as playing a movie is generally a read-only activity it would more point to an internal device issue.

3

How did you initialise and format the NETAC ZX20 (presumably on Windows 11) ?
Is it encrypted ?

4

I formatted with windows 10 originally.

When it failed it would not initialise at all, I had to erase it with HDDScan, and then it initialised again in Windows 10 Disk Manager.

I plugged it back into Vero, didn’t show up, and went back to the dead state.

Did the above erase and intialise again and now it works fine with laptop and tablet. Copied 300GB to it with no issues.

Question is, will it die again if I plug it back into the Vero?

Would be nice to use it there.

5

So, what exactly did you do here?

6

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7

Don’t do such things since writing to an SSD for hours will shorten the lifetime of this storage significantly. Better would have been to use the ’diskpart clean’ method with Windows which only writes some MBs in the beginning and end of the LBA range.
Regarding VeroV usage: There is no known issue with SSDs but there are two ports: A black usb 2.0 port providing max. 500 mA and a blue usb 3 port with max 900 mA. Good question is whether you can operate this ssd at a usb 2.0 port at all like the Vero 4k/4k+ models only provide.
I suggest to first check the health condition of this storage. The manufacturer should tell you, how to do this. Perhaps, there is a special tool at their home page.

9

I used their software and the health check says it is fine, no issues.

Thanks for the diskpart clean info, I’’ll use that in future.

I’ll plug it in the USB2.0 port tomorrow and see what happens, I can’t be sure which one I plugged it in previously.

The Samsung drive works fine in either.

Are there other drives I should not connect to the blue port?

10

I couldn’t see anywhere the manufacture listed power specs. I wasn’t finding them anywhere else either with a quick search. I wonder if the drive has high current demands and can get corrupted if underpowered. This thing is listed as being a high speed NVME and that type of device is not usually something that operates at under half an amp at max draw. If this is the case then you might have to use a powered USB hub that can supply more current.

11

(I moved this topic to the correct ‘Vero V’ sub-category)

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12

Ok, I meanwhile looked at the datahseet of the ZX20 on the NETAC web pages and it states

  • Interface: USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 with Type-C; Backwards compatible with USB3.2 Gen 2x1, USB3.2 Gen 1 and USB2.0

So, try first the USB 2.0 port. But the correct port to get the performance benefits is the blue left port of the Vero. Try this afterwards.
Is there anything installed in addition on the Vero V which could write data to the connected SSD?

13

There is nothing installed on the Vero apart from what is there out of the box.

Ill try it again today, worst that could happen is the same thing again.

14

It works fine with my phone, tablet and laptop.

It would be fairly inconvenient to carry a power supply for it, it’s only 2 inches long and attaches to a keyring.

15

I plugged the SSD into the blue USB port yesterday and it worked fine.

Either, last time I used the other USB socket, or more likely, this drive has some issues and will probably stop working at some point in the near future.

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16

I couldn’t find power consumption figures but I did find it has no DRAM cache.

“ To improve write speeds, a pseudo-SLC cache is used, so bursts of incoming writes are soaked up more quickly. The cache is sized at 90 GB. Copying data out of the SLC cache (folding) completes at 170 MB/s.”.

Since writing data to an SSD uses a lot more power than reading and is where drawing more than the vero V can supply is likely it would be worth leaving it connected to your laptop for long enough that the SLC cache has been emptied.

I have several nvme m.2 drives in usb-c enclosures and the fastest can peak draw at around 12W when writing from my desktop, but only draw 0.2W when reading to my Vero V.

I had a few disconnects when writing when I originally plugged it into my USB 3 hub until I figured out what was happening and switched to the 15W USB-C port on my mobo. I have an older equally specced Samsung T7 portable SSD that was fine on my USB 3 hub.

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