SSD (and HDD) not recognised

[okulo]

I have an A95X Max which I have been using with a Toshiba 750GB HDD without any serious issues. It is formatted GUID/exFAT.

I decided to replace it with an SSD fro a number of reasons:

1) Increase capacity
2) Reduce noise
3) The HDD gets hot

I purchased a Crucial MX500 1TB SSD and formatted it with a Mac to the same as the 750GB HDD, i.e. GUID/exFAT. I copied everything from the HDD and then installed it in the A95X Max but it wasn't recognised.

I checked it on my Mac and it was fine, checked the formatting in case I had made a mistake but all was fine. I then tried connecting it using a USB/SATA cable and it worked fine. I then spent hours reformatting it with different formats, exFAT, FAT32, NTFS and different partition maps (GUID, MBR). I then tried using Windows to reformat the SSD and finally Command Line. Nothing worked.

In an answer to a customer on Amazon, Crucial stated specifically that the 1TB MX500 was compatible with the A95X Max.

I then went through a lot of Mac drive juggling to try the 960GB SanDisk from one of my MacBook Pros and then went through the same formatting but again, it would not work.

I concluded that maybe the A95X Max is not compatible with SSDs so thought I'd just increase the capacity by clearing a Toshiba 1TB HDD but that didn't work either. I looked at the disk info of the 1TB and 750GB HDDs side by side and apart from the capacity, they were identical.

I put the 750GB HDD back just to make sure that still worked and it is fine.

So, I don't understand the problem unless there is a capacity limit somewhere between 750GB and 960GB.

Can anybody offer any advice, please?

 

[okulo]

I don't know if anybody looks at this forum but I thought I would post an update to this issue.

I tried to reformat the SanDisk 960GB SSD again whilst in a USB 3.0 enclosure I just bought. I don't know why but I thought it might make a difference. I formatted the SSD as FAT32 and put it in the A95X Max and it appeared in Kodi. I then reformatted it exFAT and put a film on it. Again it showed up in Kodi and I could play the film. Believing that the problem was solved, I copied all my movies from the 750GB HDD to the SSD and installed it in the A95X Max again which I rebooted again but it did not appear.

So, I have no idea what is going on other than maybe there is a file/data limitation which causes the SSD to not be recognised. If somebody does read this who has any expertise in this area, I'd be grateful for any advice.

 

[BenDroiX]

The A95X Max's SSD compatibility seems fairly temperamental at times. I remember us testing around 4 different 1TB 2.5 inch HDD's with the internal drive bay, I think a Seagate and Hitatchi one worked, but the Western Digital ones did not.
Pressing the supplier on this also didn't yield much information, so unfortunately we can't offer much advice in this regard.

 

[okulo]

Thanks for the reply.

That's a pity. As I said, I'm having problems with the 750GB HDD that I have been using as it seems to be at the end of its life and I from my stock of about a dozen mainly new drives, I haven't found another HDD or SSD that works. I'm considering trying a firmware upgrade but that isn't simple using a Mac and I'm not 100% confident that the information I have found about firmware is legit.