Kingston USB Stick - Suddenly "Read-Only"

[computerconnections]

Strange issue here. I installed the latest FreeNAS on my new server, and used an 8GB thumb drive to boot from. Nothing but problems from the start. It would run fine until I rebooted it, and then it just wouldn't come back. I tested the drive on my Mac and it was perfectly fine. I even stress-tested it for almost 20 hours, still no errors were reported, but yet it wouldn't even boot FreeNAS. So, I installed it on a new USB stick: Kingston 16GB DT101 G2. The server ran flawlessly for about 3 months, and then I came in one morning to find that it had kernel panic'ed. When I rebooted the machine, it wouldn't come back. Then, I created a FreeBSD VM on my Mac to recover the FreeNAS config from the da0s4 UFS slice, and I noticed the same obscure errors on the screen of that VM as I did on the FreeNAS box. When I went to format/reinstall FreeNAS on the drive, it just failed silently right after choosing the device in the install menu. Still undaunted, I brought the thumb drive back to my Mac to format it, and noticed that all the controls in Disk Utility were greyed out when that device was selected, and the status at the bottom said "Read-Only." Thinking it was maybe a fluke, I brought it to the receptionist's PC and Windows was also unable to format it. It was exactly like a SD card with the "Secure" switch flipped....But this drive doesn't have a "read-only" security switch.

Is that really weird, or am I losing my mind?

Would it be more reliable to install FreeNAS on an SSD, perhaps?

Thanks!

 

[cyberjock]

It is weird, but you are losing your mind. Ok, I joke about you losing your mind. It sounds to me like a failing USB drive.

 

[JaimieV]

I'd guess you've simply been unlucky with your USB sticks. However, you might want to make sure that your machine is actually putting out 5V on the USB power pins... the outside ones are 0V and +5V for multimetering, or your BIOS may read out the voltages at boot time. I've seen anything up to 15V on those pins from bad power supplies.

 

[antonov]

[...] and I noticed the same obscure errors on the screen of that VM as I did on the FreeNAS box

Something like this?


Kind Regards,

Antonov

 

[computerconnections]

Wow!

Something like this?
View attachment 1823

No, not quite *that* obscure... :)

 

[antonov]

I thought that this was a hint for a broken graphics chip, but after booting the FreeNAS-Stick in my Laptop it made the same obscure colors. So it was the stick wich produced that problem.