Add new storage pool not showing USB JBOD box drives

[hrrmcelroy]

I've searched the internet in general and the TrueNAS forums with out any luck finding a similar post. That is not to say one doesn't exist so if this ends up being a duplicate please point me to it and skip the trash talk about not searching please. :p

My problem
I have a Mobius 5-bay RAID/JBOD box that is in JBOD mode and connected to my TrueNAS server (12.0-U3.1) via USB 3.0. When I go to create a new storage pool with the 4 6TB drives from the Mobius only one shows up in the create storage pool window. Now I know the JBOD on the Mobius works for 2 reasons. 1:) I can plug it into my workstation and all 4 drives mount individually no problem. 2:) I can see all the drives via the TrueNAS shell by typing camcontrol devlist. So the question is why is the TrueNas GUI not detecting all 4 of the 6TB drives in the Mobius box? If you need more info please just ask and don't be sassy. I hate folks who post word vomits on forums with their entire system config and the names of their pets. Ain't no one got time to read all that. :)

Screenshots
"Disks" view of the only drive from the Mobius that shows up

Create new pool window

camcontrol devlist output

 

[jgreco]

Yup, this is common with USB external enclosures. What's probably happening here is that the serial for each disk is being reported as the same and that TrueNAS is believing it.

I think there was another similar issue lately, which might have been in the TrueNAS Jira.

Hopefully you are not actually thinking of running your disks this way in production; USB is rather flaky and prone to problems.

 

[hrrmcelroy]

Could you point me to the TrueNAS Jira issue? I would like to stay on top of it and see if anyone comes up with a solution.

This is a production unit, but the files going on this box are non-critical RAW video footage so if it flakes it flakes. We just need a huge chunk of cheap storage to keep the files on just in case.

 

[hrrmcelroy]

I ran geom disk list and TrueNAS is most certainly assigning the same lunid to the Mobius drives. Is there a way to fix this or am I stuck with a pile of hardware I need to find another use for?
Geom disk list output

Code:

   fwheads: 255

Geom name: da8
Providers:
1. Name: da8
   Mediasize: 6001175126016 (5.5T)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 4096
   Stripeoffset: 0
   Mode: r0w0e0
   descr: Mobius DISK1
   lunname: JMICRON JMS567 DISK00   0123456789ABCDEF
   lunid: 3001234567891234
   ident: 0123456789ABCDEF
   rotationrate: unknown
   fwsectors: 63
   fwheads: 255

Geom name: da9
Providers:
1. Name: da9
   Mediasize: 6001175126016 (5.5T)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 4096
   Stripeoffset: 0
   Mode: r0w0e0
   descr: Mobius DISK2
   lunname: JMICRON JMS567 DISK01   0123456789ABCDEF
   lunid: 3001234567891234
   ident: 0123456789ABCDEF
   rotationrate: unknown
   fwsectors: 63
   fwheads: 255

Geom name: da10
Providers:
1. Name: da10
   Mediasize: 6001175126016 (5.5T)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 4096
   Stripeoffset: 0
   Mode: r0w0e0
   descr: Mobius DISK3
   lunname: JMICRON JMS567 DISK02   0123456789ABCDEF
   lunid: 3001234567891234
   ident: 0123456789ABCDEF
   rotationrate: unknown
   fwsectors: 63
   fwheads: 255

Geom name: da11
Providers:
1. Name: da11
   Mediasize: 6001175126016 (5.5T)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 4096
   Stripeoffset: 0
   Mode: r0w0e0
   descr: Mobius DISK4

 

[sretalla]

If your plan is to just use that box as a backup of a pool or something, you can probably get away with running the enclosure in RAID5 (or RAID0) mode and treating it as a single disk as far as TrueNAS can see.

If you want to have a pool which lives permanently on the server and provides services via ZFS reliably, you need another option than that box. There are plenty of options for that explained in the forum if you do a little searching... USB will not be part of it.

I'm speaking as somebody who has the experience of having gone down that path, many years back (knowing I was on my own, having seen recommendations to avoid it and thinking I knew better than those in the forums). It doesn't work for long (although you may find solutions that will work for some short amount of time as I did, ZFS transaction groups quickly overload a USB controller and bring it to a very early death... additionally all pool operations will be super-slow due to bus contention even with USB3.1).

 

[hrrmcelroy]

sretalla,

I appreciate the honesty and insight from your personal experience. Hopefully it will be enough to get my boss to loosen the purse strings and stop being cheap. :)

 

[Redcoat]

I think there was another similar issue lately, which might have been in the TrueNAS Jira.

I think this is likely the Jira issue to which @jgreco refers: https://jira.ixsystems.com/browse/NAS-110030