So I have this raspberry pi 3 with a external HDD 500GB and a usb 3.0. The raspberry has only USB 2.0 ports.
So when I plug the HDD in the raspberry the HDD does not show in the file explorer, the bigger problem is that when I plug it it, all my other devices(mouse, keyboard and flash) instantly die and I have to pull out the HDD to proceed using my mouse and keyboard.
The HDD is working perfectly on my laptop(on both my USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 port).
Can I somehow make my HDD work with my raspberry or will I have to get a new one ?!
Best Answer
A external 500GB USB2 harddisk and a USB3 pendrive?
or a 500GB external USB3 harddrive?
This is almost centainly because the HDD is drawing more power than the Pi can supply.
The board has a single MicroUSB power connector and a undefined PSU. (Undefined as, you have to provide this yourself. Often an USB charger is used that depending on the model it those can supply between ½A and 3Amp. You did not mention which PSU you are using.
However, that thing needs to power both the rPi (using up to 1Amp) and all pheripherals. A HDD (especially one which spins up) draws a lot of power. It is very likely that you are exceeding your power budget.
Without knowing precisely which PSU is used, which other devices are plugged in and how much your HDD draws it is hard to say though. As a rought figure: 2½ drives tend to draw about 650mWatt.
Citing: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/power/README.md
The normal solution for this would be to either plug a PSU into your external drive (many ship with an option for external power but without matching PSU, hoping that they can draw enough power out of an USB interface), or an powered USB hub. In this case that hup will have its own PSU and can supply up to 500mA (USB2) or 900mA (USB3) to the harddrive.