USB drive keeps getting corrupted

[weslsew]

I've had a RT86 for about two months. As soon as I got it, I installed Merlin and installed a USB drive on which I installed entware, diversion, and played around with a couple other packages. My drive got corrupted, so I re-partitioned and re-formatted it (used ext2 both times). This time I only installed entware and diversion, and after about two weeks the drive has gotten corrupted again.

I'm using a fairly new cheap 16GB Kingston usb drive from target. Could it be the flash drive or is there a way to find out what's happening?

 

[loveleeyoungae]

I suspect the usb thumbdrive got some issues as Kingston is not considered a good reliable brand. Maybe you'd wanna try Sandisk Ultra Flair.

 

[PolarBear]

I found that my thumbnail USB stick plugged into the router (RT-AC66U) got very hot. I was concerned that it might get damaged.

Now I have the thumbnail drive plugged into a 15cm (6 inch) USB extension cable, which itself plugs into the back of the router. Even though it is very short, the extension cable acts as a heat sink and the thumbnail drive now runs much cooler.

I am not sure if this is relevant to the problems the OP mentions, but I though I would mention it.

 

[ColinTaylor]

...as Kingston is not considered a good reliable brand.

By who? I've always been of the opposite opinion. OK a lot of their products are "value" rather than "performance" but I've never had any reliability problems. Unlike the last Sandisk Ultra flash drives I bought. First one, perfect. Second one, failed after first write, Third one, failed after first write. Got a Kingston G4 instead .

 

[loveleeyoungae]

By who? I've always been of the opposite opinion. OK a lot of their products are "value" rather than "performance" but I've never had any reliability problems. Unlike the last Sandisk Ultra flash drives I bought. First one, perfect. Second one, failed after first write, Third one, failed after first write. Got a Kingston G4 instead .

Oops. I just heard their expensive series might be OK, but their cheap ones usually have issues. Maybe because Kingston is popular where i live. While i have 4 Sandisk Ultra and 2 Sandisk Flair working well for 2 years.

 

[ColinTaylor]

but their cheap ones usually have issues.

I'd say again, says who? I'm not saying you're wrong I'd just like to know whether this is just hearsay or supported by some hard numbers. But also as you point out, it might just be that they're so popular that you hear about them more than other brands when they do go wrong.

I'd still regard Sandisk as a quality brand (along with Kingston) even after my recent experiences with them. But as I personally haven't bought and tested 1000's of their products I'm not in a position to offer a valid opinion on whether their products are good or bad.

 

[bbunge]

I've had a RT86 for about two months. As soon as I got it, I installed Merlin and installed a USB drive on which I installed entware, diversion, and played around with a couple other packages. My drive got corrupted, so I re-partitioned and re-formatted it (used ext2 both times). This time I only installed entware and diversion, and after about two weeks the drive has gotten corrupted again.

I'm using a fairly new cheap 16GB Kingston usb drive from target. Could it be the flash drive or is there a way to find out what's happening?

If it is in the USB3 port make sure it is set in Merlin to USB2 service.

Sent from my SM-T380 using Tapatalk

 

[weslsew]

If it is in the USB3 port make sure it is set in Merlin to USB2 service.

Sent from my SM-T380 using Tapatalk

It's always been in the USB2 port. Never seems to get even warm. Maybe it's just a bad drive, I've never had a flash drive go bad in the decade or so that I've been using them.

 

[loveleeyoungae]

I'd say again, says who? I'm not saying you're wrong I'd just like to know whether this is just hearsay or supported by some hard numbers. But also as you point out, it might just be that they're so popular that you hear about them more than other brands when they do go wrong.

I'd still regard Sandisk as a quality brand (along with Kingston) even after my recent experiences with them. But as I personally haven't bought and tested 1000's of their products I'm not in a position to offer a valid opinion on whether their products are good or bad.

Yeah, in previous post, I forgot to mention I might be a little biased. Well, when you have heard bad things about the brand for years, dated back to 2003-2004 IIRC, not only from forums but also from friends (they had some super cheap Kingston usb drives back then which easily died on the usb port - maybe overvoltage issues), it's hard to turn to the normal opinion. And I'm aware that in recent years, they had some improvements for their products, and their more premium series have worked quite well.

And here, around 7 years, more people can afford to buy stuffs from Sandisk. I don't think I have encountered any bad reviews on them from people around me. I know Sandisk have a bad series Ultra Fit, that's why I bought my Samsung Fit instead.

So, as always, YMMV. And I'm still biased. But we normal users hardly find a full report/comparison which always contains updated info for these stuffs, so sometimes we may have to depend on info/news around us, or even feelings.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I've had a RT86 for about two months. As soon as I got it, I installed Merlin and installed a USB drive on which I installed entware, diversion, and played around with a couple other packages. My drive got corrupted, so I re-partitioned and re-formatted it (used ext2 both times). This time I only installed entware and diversion, and after about two weeks the drive has gotten corrupted again.

I'm using a fairly new cheap 16GB Kingston usb drive from target. Could it be the flash drive or is there a way to find out what's happening?

amtm has a disk check script that you can enable. It checks the disk at boot. Maybe it works for you too, it did wonders fore some, including me.

 

[Trebuin]

I used to have that problem with my drives using the NTFS drivers. Once I switched to EXT, they stopped corrupting

 

[weslsew]

I’m thinking it was probably the drive. I ordered two of the Sandisk ultra flair 32GB and I noticed immediately that they’re worlds faster. I’ll update if I’m still having the problem, but for now I’ll assume it was the drive.

 

[Marc66]

Using Kingston DT micro in my AC66U for a couple of years without issues (formated as EXT3) and another in my car for music (formated as FAT) without any issues (with car habitacle ranging from -15°C to 40°C)

 

[ColinTaylor]

I've had this Verbatim Store 'n' Stay 16GB Nano plugged into my Asus for more than 4 and a half years. It's not quick but it's good enough for storing logs and transferring the occasional file.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

By who? I've always been of the opposite opinion. OK a lot of their products are "value" rather than "performance" but I've never had any reliability problems. Unlike the last Sandisk Ultra flash drives I bought. First one, perfect. Second one, failed after first write, Third one, failed after first write. Got a Kingston G4 instead .

I have two fairly new and hardly used Sandisk flash drives and neither of them would work with my new JVC TV, so I purchased a 128GB Kingston flash drive and it worked first time. Maybe the Sandisk flash drives would have worked if I'd had the time and patience to do a full format first, rather than a quick format, I don't know. Incidentally, the equipment I use at work is very fussy with SD cards and many of the Sandisk SD cards won't work, but the equivalent Transcend SD cards work every time. I do have a Sandisk flash drive plugged into my router at the moment, storing security camera data and it's been working fine for several weeks, although it is getting quite hot (I noticed that someone else in this thread mentioned the heat aspect and I found the same with another ASUS router, so it does seem to be a feature of ASUS routers, especially with the very small flash drives). It's quite hard to make a judgement about what is good and what isn't as there seems to be a lot of varied experiences, even within the same brand.

 

[sfx2000]

I've had a RT86 for about two months. As soon as I got it, I installed Merlin and installed a USB drive on which I installed entware, diversion, and played around with a couple other packages. My drive got corrupted, so I re-partitioned and re-formatted it (used ext2 both times). This time I only installed entware and diversion, and after about two weeks the drive has gotten corrupted again.

Use ext3 or ext4, and while some folks recommend against it, journaling can help...

If one is going to use entware, might consider dedicating a partition specifically for entware, as it's generally stateful, and it doesn't need much updating there.

Keep in mind that sometimes a drive might have a dirty filesystem, perhaps due to dirty shutdown, power outage, etc...

This can normally be addressed with fsck, but only if the volume is unmounted (yes, one can fsck on a mounted filesystem, but never recommended).

 

[loveleeyoungae]

Use ext3 or ext4, and while some folks recommend against it, journaling can help...

If one is going to use entware, might consider dedicating a partition specifically for entware, as it's generally stateful, and it doesn't need much updating there.

Keep in mind that sometimes a drive might have a dirty filesystem, perhaps due to dirty shutdown, power outage, etc...

This can normally be addressed with fsck, but only if the volume is unmounted (yes, one can fsck on a mounted filesystem, but never recommended).

Is there any downside with NTFS? I'd like to keep NTFS so it'd be easier to use the drive on my other laptops if necessary.

 

[Marc66]

Is there any downside with NTFS? I'd like to keep NTFS so it'd be easier to use the drive on my other laptops if necessary.

NTFS is not a native Linux filesystem. If your drive is 99% of the time in your router, you should favour using a Linux filesystem and enable Samba (or FTP) when you need to access the drive from your laptop(s). That's what I do with mine ;-)

 

[loveleeyoungae]

NTFS is not a native Linux filesystem. If your drive is 99% of the time in your router, you should favour using a Linux filesystem and enable Samba (or FTP) when you need to access the drive from your laptop(s). That's what I do with mine ;-)

Yeah, actually I tried NTFS and it worked fine. Currently, my HDD drive is partitioned into 2 partitions:
- one is formatted as ext4-without-journaling and used to run add-on scripts
- one is formatted as NTFS and used to save video files from IP Camera.