Intel's latest generation CPUs come with a chipset that causes issues with USB drives. The Haswell CPUs were launched last week and should deliver same or better performance than the previous Ivy Bridge CPUs while consuming severely less power.
Exactly the power saving feature of the new Intel 8 seriesint chip-sets that are used in conjunction with with the new CPUs causes the problem. If a system awakes from standby the USB 3.0 drive is gone for the system to appear a few seconds later again.
This causes issues when you playback video or have a document open before you put the system in standby. When the system awakes your video player or document viewer will tell you the file is gone as the connected drive disappeared for the computer. While it might not happen very often and no data is lost it's at least annoying.
From the 22 USB 3.0 sticks and external SSDs and HDDs only 8 devices didn't suffer from the bug. In the other 14 devices, the majority, the bug was present. Intel will launch a new version of the chipset in July that should be bug free, however on the outside of the packaging you won't be able to determine if you have a bug free (C2 stepping) or a bugged (C1) version of the chipset. To get hold of that information you need to check it with CPU info software.
When you buy a Haswell motherboard after July and want to connect an external USB 3.0 HDD, SSD or USB stick, then it might be wise to ask in the store if you get a bug free motherboard and somehow test with your external USB 3.0 device.
