NAS (any brand) external USB drive bay - issues

[stevech]

wow. thanks.
the last format on that box was done on the synology, USB2 port.

Backup to that drive is not the primary backup. The primary is the 2nd drive/volume in the NAS. Next is a 2.5 inch drive enclosure USB3 with a 2TB drive.
I just got this 2 drive bay box on a whim; it was only $50 at Fry's:
http://frys.com/product/7276143?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
These drives were in the DS212 NAS, replaced by larger ones, and were unused. Hence, the box.

Switch settings inside this box are

• Normal. Two separate drives
• RAID0 striped
• RAID1 Mirror
• JBOD "concentrates 2 drives to a single drive" is says

I played with RAID0 mode and JBOD mode. Formatted both. Currently using JBOD mode since this is backup data, not critical.

Synology's GUI says: 1,516.04GB used of 3,667.56GB total. Enclosure has two 2TB WD drives.

In the log file displays, we see
DS212> fdisk -l /dev/sds1
fdisk: device has more than 2^32 sectors, can't use all of them

What the heck does that mean? It's "just" a 4TB drive in JBOD mode.

 

[stevech]

Now I read
http://www.hornettek.com/hdd-enclosure/dual-bay/hornettek-x2-u3.html

Hmm... says 3TB max per bay. OK for now as mine are 2TB ea.
enclosure. Pretty generic.

 

[sfx2000]

wow. thanks.
the last format on that box was done on the synology, USB2 port.

I typically don't go into this level of debug for things that are not "my problem" - but you're a good friend and member of the boards here...

Backup to that drive is not the primary backup. The primary is the 2nd drive/volume in the NAS. Next is a 2.5 inch drive enclosure USB3 with a 2TB drive.

Practice what we preach here - all good... just any backups on that device are probably suspect at this point... usb2 is probably ok, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I just got this 2 drive bay box on a whim; it was only $50 at Fry's:
http://frys.com/product/7276143?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
These drives were in the DS212 NAS, replaced by larger ones, and were unused. Hence, the box.

Switch settings inside this box are

• Normal. Two separate drives
• RAID0 striped
• RAID1 Mirror
• JBOD "concentrates 2 drives to a single drive" is says

I played with RAID0 mode and JBOD mode. Formatted both. Currently using JBOD mode since this is backup data, not critical.

hehe - we get what we pay for @ Fry's, eh?

Probably works fine over Windows

Synology's GUI says: 1,516.04GB used of 3,667.56GB total. Enclosure has two 2TB WD drives.

In the log file displays, we see
DS212> fdisk -l /dev/sds1
fdisk: device has more than 2^32 sectors, can't use all of them

What the heck does that mean? It's "just" a 4TB drive in JBOD mode.

[/quote]

It sort of does - depends on what the prolific chip sends over - and going thru the block diagram - plugging into usb3 is an entirely different animal compared to usb2 - that's why it's a firmware bug on the box, not on the synology, and that's why their customer care folks replied the way they did - it's outside of the qa params..

FWIW - the fdisk -l outcome is expected - fdisk looks at the devices, not the partitions on the devices.

 

[sfx2000]

Anyways - back to my kernel hacking...

BTW - picked up a netgear GS108T - nice switch - bad WebGUI, broke into the unit in about 2 minutes... as a distraction - it's eCOS inside, and a pretty old one at that.

WebGUI's are nice for customers, not so good for network elements - web programmers are lazy with regards to locking down their code - and when everything in an embedded device runs as the same user - break the web daemon, and you own the device...

And folks wonder why I rail against WebGUI's on consumer grade router/AP's... oh well...

 

[stevech]

I wonder how I can verify the backup via USB3.

The box had a backup done with USB2. Today I ran the same backup job with USB3. It was a differential I suppose, as it finished in an hour or so, whereas on USB2, the first full bakcup took maybe 8 hours.

GUIs.. are nice. I'm sure you've suffered Cisco's arcane command line work with routers.

 

[sfx2000]

I wonder how I can verify the backup via USB3.

The box had a backup done with USB2. Today I ran the same backup job with USB3. It was a differential I suppose, as it finished in an hour or so, whereas on USB2, the first full bakcup took maybe 8 hours.

GUIs.. are nice. I'm sure you've suffered Cisco's arcane command line work with routers.

Could always hash the two backups I suppose...

Cisco IOS CLI - uggh... I've never really liked it, but get used to it I suppose... Juniper was a bit easier to work with.

 

[stevech]

Fry's excels at selling flaky China stuff they buy for big discounts. I'd never count on that box as a primary store, but as a first-order backup, which it isn't, that's just as bad.

 

[sfx2000]

FWIW - I picked up a USB3 bus powered Seagate backup portable over at the costco - 4TB USB3, and it's not just a bulk storage, it's the SCSI over USB3 protocol, and darn fast... and supported by Win/Mac/new linux kernels.

$125 bucks... once I saw that digging into the device, I went out and picked up another one... the utility of the controller alone is worth it to me - they're 2.5 inch 15mm drives, so a bit thick for a laptop, but the drives fit fine inside a NAS sled...

And this is over USB3 on a little Intel J1800 processor... more than fast enough for file sharting over ethernet..

sfx@blaster:~$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sda
[sudo] password for sfx:

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads:   3064 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1532.18 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 352 MB in  3.01 seconds = 116.84 MB/sec

 

[stevech]

I know what SCSI is/was, but SCSI over USB3?

4TB on a 2.5 inch? Is it 7200RPM?

Sounds like it is NOT one of those drives that has the USB controller on the drive's PCB and has no SATA connector.

"new Linux" kernels.. how would that match up with QNAP/Synology OS revisions? I'm not rushing to use Synology's new DSM 6. For several reasons.

 

[sfx2000]

I know what SCSI is/was, but SCSI over USB3?

4TB on a 2.5 inch? Is it 7200RPM?

Sounds like it is NOT one of those drives that has the USB controller on the drive's PCB and has no SATA connector.

see uasp - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Attached_SCSI

it's a discrete controller/adapter on the USB3 side - drive is SATA3, but very high platter density, 5 platters I'm told, hence the 15mm vs. normal 11 to 7mm for that size

5400 rpm to keep the power draw down - but usb3 gives up 2.1A over 5vDC, so all good...

neat device - go and grab one up...

 

[stevech]

I may grab one!
USB2 says 0.5A per socket but vendors make little attempt to comply. It's probably worse with USB3 at 2.5A. But my 2.5 inch 2TB is USB 3 bus powered. I'll have to try it on a USB2 socket rated at 0.5A.

Or make a dummy load tester.

 

[stevech]

I noted

As of 2012, the Linux kernel also had native UAS support, but it had compatibility problems with Texas Instruments chipsets.[16] The Linux driver had "broken" status from December 2012[17] until September 2013.[18] Version 3.18-rc4 of the Linux kernel disables buggy UAS implementation in xHCI host controllers Etron EJ168, ASMedia ASM1042,[19] and VIA VL80x.
​

Does your 4TB USB3 work properly with the QNAP's kernel version?

 

[sfx2000]

I noted

As of 2012, the Linux kernel also had native UAS support, but it had compatibility problems with Texas Instruments chipsets.[16] The Linux driver had "broken" status from December 2012[17] until September 2013.[18] Version 3.18-rc4 of the Linux kernel disables buggy UAS implementation in xHCI host controllers Etron EJ168, ASMedia ASM1042,[19] and VIA VL80x.
​

Does your 4TB USB3 work properly with the QNAP's kernel version?

Yes... works fine...

I've been operating under the assumption that the B-Side connector is USB3 - they're different than USB2

See below - USB3 has extra pins... and a USB2 cable plugged into a USB3 device might give confusing data - esp. with something like the prolific chip in that external box.

 

[sfx2000]

Does your 4TB USB3 work properly with the QNAP's kernel version?

On the QNAP - QTS 4.2.1 on x86 - TS-453Pro if folks are curious.

# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05e3:0610 Genesys Logic, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 125f:601a A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd. 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 05e3:0617 Genesys Logic, Inc. 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0bc2:ab34 Seagate RSS LLC 

# uname -a
Linux <machinename> 3.12.6 #1 SMP Tue Apr 19 02:20:30 CST 2016 x86_64 unknown

 

[stevech]

pinout. Note too the optional power pins on the B connector.
http://connector.pinoutsguide.com/9...rd-B_Plugs_and_11_pin_USB_3.0_Powered-B_Plug/

 

[sfx2000]

pinout. Note too the optional power pins on the B connector.
http://connector.pinoutsguide.com/9...rd-B_Plugs_and_11_pin_USB_3.0_Powered-B_Plug/

Here's where things get weird with USB3

All A-type plugs look the same - but they're not - USB3 actually has more connections on the "blue" port, except that not USB3 ports are blue - my work laptop the ports are all black, and my MacBooks, one has to assume they're USB3 or not (all their ports are either USB3 or not, btw, depends on the model - even Apple can't sort this one)

Micro-TypeB - assumes there is power on the plug, sufficient power, but sometimes not

Crazy stuff - I've got a 5TB Seagate Backup drive, 3.5" external, and it's external powered, but has a micro-TypeB connection

And then all the weird stuff with USB Type C...

 

[stevech]

hmm.. I just opened the box. I was mistaken: it's configured for RAID0 (stripe), not JBOD. I'd think it doesn't matter to the USB3 host PC/NAS.

I plugged its USB3 cable into my windows 7 PC and ran the ext4 mounter program: "Disk Internals Linux Reader". It saw the volume and its name. But it wouldn't mount. I've used that windows program before, with 1-drive ext4 disks.

 

[stevech]

USB3 has added pins pushed back behind the 4 USB2 pins. My 2.5 in. USB3 enclosure uses the micro USB3 w/power pins. You can see the added pins with good light and a magnifying lens.

 

[stevech]

here's that df -T command you spoke of. I did df and then df -T then df -TH.
cut/paste the output hosed up the column alignments.


DS212> df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 2451064 673092 1675572 29% /
/tmp 124716 928 123788 1% /tmp
/run 124716 1588 123128 2% /run
/dev/shm 124716 0 124716 0% /dev/shm
/dev/mapper/vol1-origin 2879539008 1617019184 1262417424 57% /volume1
/dev/mapper/vol2-origin 2879539008 1963561700 915874908 69% /volume2
/dev/sdq1 60112612 23095772 36914440 39% /volumeUSB1/usbsha re1-1
/dev/sds1 3845716040 1589576140 2256037500 42% /volumeUSB2/usbsha re
DS212> df -T
Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root ext4 2451064 673092 1675572 29% /
/tmp tmpfs 124716 928 123788 1% /tmp
/run tmpfs 124716 1588 123128 2% /run
/dev/shm tmpfs 124716 0 124716 0% /dev/shm
/dev/mapper/vol1-origin ext4 2879539008 1617019184 1262417424 57% /volume1
/dev/mapper/vol2-origin ext4 2879539008 1963561700 915874908 69% /volume2
/dev/sdq1 ext4 60112612 23095772 36914440 39% /volumeUSB1/usbshare1-1
/dev/sds1 ext4 3845716040 1589576140 2256037500 42% /volumeUSB2/usbshare
DS212> df -TH
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root ext4 2.6G 690M 1.8G 29% /
/tmp tmpfs 128M 951k 127M 1% /tmp
/run tmpfs 128M 1.7M 127M 2% /run
/dev/shm tmpfs 128M 0 128M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/mapper/vol1-origin ext4 3.0T 1.7T 1.3T 57% /volume1
/dev/mapper/vol2-origin ext4 3.0T 2.1T 938G 69% /volume2
/dev/sdq1 ext4 62G 24G 38G 39% /volumeUSB1/usbshare1-1
/dev/sds1 ext4 4.0T 1.7T 2.4T 42% /volumeUSB2/usbshare
DS212>

 

[stevech]

one more... Ran e2fsck on the large partition of the external box ... no errors

DS212> e2fsck -nvf /dev/sds1
e2fsck 1.42.6 (21-Sep-2012)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

987486 inodes used (0.40%, out of 244195328)
108381 non-contiguous files (11.0%)
112 non-contiguous directories (0.0%)
# of inodes with ind/dind/tind blocks: 0/0/0
Extent depth histogram: 986811/667
412721009 blocks used (42.25%, out of 976755984)
0 bad blocks
71 large files

823616 regular files
163861 directories
0 character device files
0 block device files
0 fifos
0 links
0 symbolic links (0 fast symbolic links)
0 sockets
------------
987477 files