[lancastrian]

On my Chromebox, I notice that it doesn't always keep an external drive connected. I had a 2TB that would disco then reconnect, and my 6 does now too. I've used 4 different cables and 3 of the 4 ports. All the same issue. Also, when it idles for long periods of time, upon turning the system back on, it's no longer accessible, though it is clearly on.

Any ideas? I read somewhere about the USB 3.0 having some sort of power save mode that may disconnect and not allow a reconnect. Whether it's a temp or total disconnect, a reboot always fixes it. It's pretty annoying.

I had an issue writing to a portable HDD when connected to my Chromebox's USB 3.0 ports (it would disconnect/fail mid-transfer). In the end the workaround was attaching it via a cheap USB 2.0 hub - not as quick, but it worked, suggesting the problem was USB 3.0 related.

It's a strange one, because I connected the same drive directly to my dad's Chromebox - an identical HP CB1-030na with the exact same version of OpenELEC (and even the same add-ons) - without any issues whatsoever.

Another possible option, and one I've since taken, is to attach your HDD directly to your router (or NAS if you have one) and have your Chromebox retreive the files across your network. This also means you can access the files from other devices when your Chromebox is not switched on.