Solved New Laptop Rejecting Installation of an 8tb m.2 SSD in the second slot

Hi All,

I just purchased an Asus Rog Zephyrus Pro Duo 16 laptop and am upgrading the storage to two 8tb m.2 ssd cards. When I loaded the boot image on the primary slot 1 nvme device slot, the system booted up no problem, however the second 8tb will not read. It shows up in the bios menu, so bios knows it exists, and Windows 11 sees it long enough to register it as a drive but turns it into read only and gives me the below errors (see end of post).

What I tested:

1. I confirmed the second drive does not have issues on another machine
2. I pulled the second drive, flashed it with the boot image, ran a clean diskpart on the primary 8tb to convert it to general storage, with the drives inserted into flipped slots, error still persisted ON THE SECOND SLOT (which proved the issue is not with the m.2 card, but with the device)
3. I put a 2tb nvme in the second slot, it reads/writes without issue
4. i checked bios settings for any way to configure my sata ports on the mobo, but found no options

The issue when navigating after boot, if i am lucky enough for the drive to register before the device shuts down, whenever i try to access it with any file activity, it continuously posts the error pop up message "A device which does not exist was specified". This is consistent with the errors i found in the event viewer.

My Prime Objective: To determine if the secondary NVME slot is faulty. This is a very expensive laptop, and i'm on day 2 of the return policy.

Please let me know what your thoughts are. Could the second nvme slot be faulty? I understand not many people run 2x 8tb m.2 cards in their laptops so this may be one of the more uncommon issues. I don't know if it's simply a capacity issue, if the controllers are somehow clashing, or what else it could be.

The last test i'm going to do is put the stock boot drive back in (2tb) and see if it reads the 8tb in slot 2. If it does, its an incompatibility running 2x8tb at the same time. If not, it would mean slot 2 of this machine is rejecting any nvme card 8tb in size (one is PNY, one is a Corsair).

Here are the logs in event viewer:

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\RaidPort1.
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR1 during a paging operation.
Ntfs (Ntfs) - {Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file D:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.
VDS Basic Provider - Unexpected failure. Error code: 1B1@01010003
Ntfs (Microsoft-Windows-Ntfs) -
The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur in VolumeId: E:, DeviceName: \Device\HarddiskVolume9.

Failure status: A device which does not exist was specified.

Device GUID: {f9675d9d-48f6-662b-f342-50fb35b92fdd}
Device manufacturer:
Device model: PNY CS2130 8TB SSD
Device revision: CS213531
Bus type: NVMe

So i'm back, just installed windows and set up, my config now is a 4tb in slot 1, 8tb in slot 2. i still get the issue:



So the problem is 100% the second slot not liking these 8tb cards. Has nothing to do with pairing. I need help troubleshooting to see if this slot is faulty which would warrant this going straight back to Asus for a refund.

The second slot clearly can not be entirely faulty, as it would not then support a 2TB drive -- which it seems to do without issue. Unless you have some formal documentation stating that the motherboard supports a capacity of 16TB, you will have a difficult time claiming any fault with the motherboard.

Did you test the 4TB drive in the second slot? If not, try that -- and then you will know if the slot accepts drives larger than 2TB.

Are you able to boot with only one 8TB drive and that being in the second slot? If so, the limitation is a combination of drive capacities -- and you could then boot from the second slot and try different size drives in the first slot. I think you will probably bump up against the same capacity limitations (i.e., 10TB or 12TB max)

I flipped the cards - 4tb is now in slot 2 (with OS), 8tb is in slot 1 - and apparently reads/writes now.

I know mobo's have different configurations on the primary/secondary slots for what they support. Perhaps it is a size support issue with the device controller driver?

I did not try to boot from slot 2, but with the other configurations I tried, seems the overall capacity isn't the issue here. It's that the second NVME rejects 8tb in size SSD cards.

With all you have heard with this issue, can you safely say that i don't have a lemon? If I don't, I can work with the 4tb in slot 2 as my OS drive. It's a gen 4, so it'll be 2x faster anyway. As long as i can have that secondary capacity available, its do-able.

If you look at my history you will see i hit horrible issues with a ROG Duo 15 - BSOD issues left and right. That one ended up going back to asus for a warranty claim. This one is the "replacement", that's why I'm extremely skeptical on the hardware now.

Just a thought, does the second M2 slot provide enough power and cooling for an 8 Tb drive?

there's no cooler on the 8tb. no clearance for anything like that in a laptop.


Anyway, thought i'd give you all one last update to close this out. If anyone presents symptoms that i did, please PLEASE tell them to DOA it. That 4 tb 4th gen M.2 ssd i put in the suspect second slot just bricked my drive. It's now a paperweight.

I was in the process of just starting to install a few apps, then i got a BSOD - CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED
on reboot - direct to bios with my boot drive missing. tested in another pc w/my usb tester - done. toast.

For voltages to not work with a 8tb, in retrospect it is obvious that power delivery was a problem to the slot. This likely resulted in a popped fuse on my 4tb after sustained use.

That is indeed an expensive laptop. I know it's too late to help you now, but per Asus, on all 4 models of the Zephyrus the specs says

Storage 2TB + 2TB PCIe® 4.0 NVMe™ M.2 Performance SSD (RAID 0)​

Thank you for reporting back. I feel for you.

Yes, but its a standard slot which should support all 3/4gen m.2 drives. It certainly shouldn't brick anything plugged in > 2tb.
Manuf support claims of x capacity are never warranted. Every device in existence that claims a 32gb max micro sd card i was able to plug in up to 1tb in size and have it recognized. Its a soft claim.

I still believe there was an actual hardware defect in play here.

p64imp said:

Its a soft claim. I still believe there was an actual hardware defect in play here.

Click to expand...

Possibly. Or it is because of the way the motherboard distributes power to the drives(power bus design), or the size of the power supply itself. It's a big chance to take after investing so much in a top quality machine to push it past what the manufacturer says it can do. I guess you'll know when you install the replacement drive.

I'm not.... to put out $4000 on a laptop that bricks a common NVME drive that even my GPD and AYA devices rock without issue... this laptop is going back to Asus. Build quality like that is inexcusable, and even more so if its an actual limitation.

I have another one on backorder from B&H photo. I can't imagine they designed the hardware like that. I love the design, but i have to say the build quality on these devices from my experience has been sub-par (my thread last year outlines the hell i went through on the 15se model).

The B&H is my last attempt. If that one acts up as well, I may write off this series entirely. At least until they can get their act together.

By the way, I will be back to provide the outcome here. I don't think there are many of us, but i'm sure there are some out there who'd like to know if a > 2tb drive can be plugged in and not get bricked in a duo 16 model.

Just gotta wait for B&H to get their first stock. May be 1-2 mos.

One last little bit of food for thought... if this is a true limitation, why did slot 1 rock my 8tb and 4tb drive without a hiccup? They are rated exactly the same in manuf specs. And for power delivery... that power brick delivers a LOT of power, in part to support the 3080ti, but still. I can't imagine the system is short changed in power delivery.

Just curious. Did you talk to Asus tech support? I would just ask them "Can I install a 8tb m.2 in this laptop?" See what song and dance they give you. I would make sure I was talking to an advanced support technician, though.

I thought about doing that, primarily in the event they play the "dont support > 2tb" card and try to charge me a 15% restocking fee.... their tech support is a brutal thing to get through though.

I may though. And yes, it has to be senior level. the Jr level support will tell you many things that just aren't true.

mine is a lenovo laptop and my drive is 30 tb. Always gives this error message:
"A device which does not exist was specified " but it is shown in the left pane until I try to format it. 30 tb does need 64 bit access. Could it be the usb driver that cannpt cope.

Just a comment about the power delivered to the SSD slots. A 2TB ssd typically consumes 4 to 5W in operstion. 9W for a fast 4TB and likely 18W or so for each of your 8TB.

A motherboard with power switchers designed with maybe a good marging for 2TB on each slot would need to deliver some 10W to them, msybe capable of 20W for a very generous margin. Now try quadrupling the draw, trying to get 36W out of it and at best it just doesn't run the second slot. Worse case it will brownout, start giving glitchy 3.3V to an ssd that might just fry.

BIOS will recognize larger sizes but you need the juice that might not be there.

You can have a 200A panel in a house, but a 15A circuit still can't run your 3000W oven.

i have seen configs of this laptop on Amazon with 2 x 8TB NVMe drives configured in a RAID 1 array, so it would appear that it does allow for dual 8TB drives if you want. Perhaps a bios update may have been in order.