I’ll try to make this mystery as simple as possible in the following way:
My components:
- Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V
- SSD: Kingston 120GB (ssdNOW 300)
- HDD: Seagate BarraCuda 1TB
- CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-3770
- RAM: Kingston 16GB (8×2) 1600MHZ DDR3
- OS: Linux Mint 21.1
Recently bought: 870 EVO SATA 2.5″ SSD 250GB
Intention: To replace Kingston SSD with a Samsung SSD for greater storage capacity.
The problem:
When Samsung SSD and Seagate HDD are both connected at the same time, almost a clash-like behaviour occurs with the system.
Explanation:
When I installed new Samsung SSD without plugging in the HDD, the system installed just fine and worked as expected, it even installed faster than on the old Kingston SSD. BUT when I’ve plugged in the HDD the system immediately behaved like it got scrambled, icons dissapeared and I couldn’t do anything. I tested Windows 10 then, of course, I got BSOD. Then I plugged in BOTH Samsung SSD and Seagate HDD started a fresh install but Samsung SSD wasn’t on the list in the install options on Linux Mint. On Windows it said that it can’t be installed on a non GPT partition. I disabled CSM options in BIOS but still the same issue.
I was able to install Pop!_OS with both drives connected but then the boot process takes significantly longer time and I was denied access to HDD and had to manually grant it. Wasn’t smooth experience and wasn’t really usable that way.
I have returned old Kingston SSD and PC works without any issues.
I’ve tried swapping SATA cables, changing power cables, still the same.
My thought is that maybe my ASUS motherboard doesn’t fully support Samsung SSD drive when connected with another internal HDD, but does work fine with Kingston one. There are no more BIOS updates for this MOBO, last one was 2013.
I just don’t understand it. Seems like wasted money on Samsung SSD in this case.
Any ideas? Is it maybe Samsung SSD Firmware not being recognized by the BIOS or something else? I have no other option but to buy another Kingston 240 GB SSD if I want more storage for the main system.
