S3610 1.8 inch SATA drives drop out

[dananski]

Hi,

I'm having some trouble getting these drives to be recognised reliably and was wondering if anyone has advice.

I have 18 of these 800GB S3610 drives after decommissioning the Dell R630 server they were in, and thought I'd put one or two in my workstation and use others for external drives, etc. But despite trying multiple drives with three different 16 pin to 23 pin SATA adapters and two USB adapters in two different computers, they all seem to be exhibiting similar problems: the drive is sometimes recognised ok at first then drops out within a minute. Sometimes they come on and off every minute or so but I haven't been able to use them for anything as they tend to die before any data makes it onto them.

Device manager sometimes shows an erroring device ("Device was not migrated due to partial or ambiguous match"), an Unknown device, not at all, or on one occasion a load of gibberish. Intel's Memory and Storage tool has only once displayed one of the drives since removing them from the server and it showed as a blank name with no details. The drives also don't seem to be behaving correctly outside of Windows, causing delays to POST and not appearing so far in UEFI.

The drives were working fine for years and I fail to believe that they all spontaneously stopped working at the same time.

I think I must be missing some crucial detail. Is there something about these drives that means they simply won't work in a normal Windows 10 Enterprise PC? Perhaps there is a SATA adapter which someone knows works with these drives? Or is this something to do with Dell branding the drives - do they make it so you can't use them with a non-Dell machine? Or is this not particular to these drives and more likely something that is happening for another reason? I secure-erased them using intelmas from the terminal on the server before removing them - could that have introduced an issue, or is there maybe a problem moving the drives from Linux to Windows?

Any help is greatly appreciated,

Dan

[JosafathB_Intel]

Hello, dananski.

Thank you for contacting Intel® Memory and Storage support.

As we understand, you are requesting support for your Intel® SSD DC S3610 Series. If we inferred correctly, we would appreciate it if you may review the following information:

1- As you mentioned, these drives are Dell* OEM SDDs and may have some Firmware and features modifications. We advise you to contact Dell*.

2- Please consider the possibility that your drives may have some security features or specific format that may cause the OS detection issue. We advise you to contact the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to get assistance with the drives.

We would appreciate it if you may let us know if you need further assistance related to another Intel® SSD product or if we can close this thread.

We will follow up with you again on Monday, the 15th of November 2021, if we do not receive an answer from you. Please, let us know if you would like to schedule a different date for the follow-up.

Best regards.

Jos B.

Intel® Customer Support Technician.

[dananski]

Hi Jos, thanks for your reply.

In response to your comments:

> 1- As you mentioned, these drives are Dell* OEM SDDs and may have some Firmware and features modifications. We advise you to contact Dell*.

I've posted on Dell's community forum too. They seemed surprised about the problems but have no suggested solutions so far. I did find some posts on there where people had these drives working (there's a lengthy thread on how to to apply some Dell firmware updates to the drives, but my drives aren't even connecting properly in POST so I'm having a much more fundamental problem).

> 2- Please consider the possibility that your drives may have some security features or specific format that may cause the OS detection issue. We advise you to contact the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to get assistance with the drives.

Actually I've been able to (very briefly) get access to the drives through the USB adapter and can write a small amount of data and check it's still there later. I think drive security would prevent this, and with the drive constantly dropping in and out, it is to all intents and purposes as if I were just using a dodgy USB port (which is why I've tried about seven different ports to be sure it's not that).

One thing I read was that these drives tend to be used with an HBA, with an implication that the regular SATA ports on a motherboard are somehow insufficient - I can't see why, but is there any reason that would be the case?

> Device manager sometimes shows an erroring device ("Device was not migrated due to partial or ambiguous match")

Since last time I've also done a clean Windows install, as the same error was affecting my audio and I figured a coincidental Windows upgrade failure had caused it. That message no longer occurs, but still the SSD problems persist.

Dan

[JosafathB_Intel]

Hello, dananski.

We were reviewing your community thread, which is related to Intel® SSD DC S3610 Series. We would like to know if you were able to check the information we shared in our previous post.

We will follow up with you again on Thursday, the 18th of November 2021, if we do not receive an answer from you. Please, let us know if you would like to schedule a different date for the follow-up.

Best regards.

Jos B.

Intel® Customer Support Technician.

[JosafathB_Intel]

Hello, dananski.

Thank you for your reply.

We suggest you continue working with Dell* since more troubleshooting or a warranty replacement may be needed due to your SSDs having intermittent detections issues.

Our advice is to contact your OEM Dell* directly. Try to get the latest firmware update and check the compatibility between the Solid-State drive and your computer since they are the only source of information regarding your SSD’s compatibility.

We will not close this thread, and you can still post and share your findings with the community. If you need assistance related to an Intel® product, please do not hesitate to contact us by opening a new thread, and please submit a new question. We will no longer monitor this thread.

We hope fellow community members have the knowledge to jump in and help.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Best regards,

Josh B.

Intel® Customer Support Technician.