Adding external USB drive

[mattmac24]

Hi!

I have my FreeNAS(HP N54L with 16gb of ram) setup with 6x3TB hard drives and it has been fantastic. I did a clean freeness install last week and it had no problem finding all my data again. I am currently running FreeNAS-9.10.2 (a476f16). I know adding a drive via USB is not recommended and USB 3 even more so, but short of upgrading all 6 of my current disks one by one(Expensive) or creating a new system I think it is my best option. The NAS is solely used for Storing Movies/TV shows in a home.

I am trying to add an external USB(8TB WD RED) drive to my system. I've spent a few hours on google and I think FreeNAS recognises my USB 3.1 PCIe card correctly(After enabling the USB 3 tunable) but when I plug in the drive I can't see it anywhere. There is nothing in dmesg at all when the drive is plugged in/out.

Here is some info from FreeNAS.

PCIe Card: http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=643&area=en
External enclosure: http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/668

usbconfig

ugen6.1: <EHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus6, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen5.1: <OHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus5, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen4.1: <EHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus4, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen3.1: <OHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus3, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen2.1: <EHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus2, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen1.1: <OHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen0.1: <XHCI root HUB 0x1b21> at usbus0, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=SUPER (5.0Gbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen4.2: <Extreme SanDisk> at usbus4, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON (200mA)


When the drive is plugged into a USB 2.0 port on the motherboard I see the additional line:
usbconfig

ugen2.2: <USB3.1 Device Generic> at usbus2, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON (0mA)

pciconf -l -v

xhci0@pci0:2:0:0: class=0x0c0330 card=0x12421b21 chip=0x12421b21 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'ASMedia Technology Inc.'
device = 'ASM1142 USB 3.1 Host Controller'
class = serial bus
subclass = USB


camcontrol devlist

ugen6.1: <EHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus6, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen5.1: <OHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus5, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen4.1: <EHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus4, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen3.1: <OHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus3, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen2.1: <EHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus2, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen1.1: <OHCI root HUB ATI> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen0.1: <XHCI root HUB 0x1b21> at usbus0, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=SUPER (5.0Gbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen4.2: <Extreme SanDisk> at usbus4, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON (200mA)


When the drive is plugged into a USB 2.0 port on the motherboard I see the additional line:
camcontrol devlist

ugen2.2: <USB3.1 Device Generic> at usbus2, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON (0mA)

Any ideas? Thanks so much!

 

[tvsjr]

Please don't do this. ZFS isn't designed to run well on a USB drive. The performance will suck, and the chance of losing everything will be high. Besides, you're only adding one drive... unless you're rebuilding your pool from scratch, a single additional drive will give you no redundancy.

 

[melloa]

I have my FreeNAS(HP N54L with 16gb of ram) setup with 6x3TB hard drives and it has been fantastic.

So why break it? I know drives are expensive, but you will be better off copying what you don't need off your NAS into your USB drive to free up space (not that I thrust USB drives) and replacing your drives one by one with 4 TiB to increase your volume size. One for Christmas from each family member would be a good start :)

 

[Arwen]

If you are adding a PCIe card, why not add a SAS controller with external port(s)?

Ideally you would add an external SAS disk chassis, but you could add in a simple,
and cheap eSATA enclosure. Just use the shortest SAS to eSATA cable you can find.
For example, this enclosure has both eSATA and USB;

http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/676

Using SAS or eSATA is far more reliable than USB.

Then you can create a separate pool for misc. things. If it get's it's cable knocked off,
it won't take down the main pool.

 

[mattmac24]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies. So what I ended up doing was just throwing the disk directly inside my plex server. Thanks Arwen, yeah going the eSATA route would have been a better option but I was trying to use components I already had lying around. Given that whatever way I set this up I would not have any sort of redundancy i don't want to spend any more money they I have to on this. It just would have been nice to be able to manage all my storage from one place.