Both USB boot drives failed?!

[ChiknNutz]

Not sure how this is possible, but both of my USB boot drives failed (boot screen shows "ERROR 13, UNRETRYABLE ERROR" for both of them). I regularly monitor the system and it did not show either were degraded. The system was working to some extent, as I could get to shares and such, but could not get the GUI to load. So I performed a reboot and now neither one will boot, have tried numerous times. I know the current recommendation is to use SATA SSD boot drives, but this is an older system (by today's standards) and USB boot drives were the thing then. My concern is being able to restore the system to prior state, since I now have to start with a fresh install. Looks like I have a backup config file from a few months ago, so I think I should be able to get it pretty close to how it was. Just really frustrated with it, these boot drives seem too fragile so I can see why the recommendation is to use something more robust. I think over the course of having this, I've replaced probably 4 to 6 of the USB drives, but only one at a time til now.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Get proper boot media, clean install, restore config.

Are you using consumer USB flash drives? Your previous boot device failures should have been a warning and should have taken action to prevent reoccurrence.

If your only option for boot pool is USB, then install a SSD in an external USB enclosure.

 

[ChiknNutz]

Get proper boot media, clean install, restore config.

Are you using consumer USB flash drives? Your previous boot device failure should have been a warning and should have taken action to prevent reoccurrence.

If your only option for boot pool is USB, then install a SSD in an external USB enclosure.

At the moment, just going to get two more new USB sticks (SanDisk 32GB Ultra Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive - SDCZ430-032G-G46 ) with an eye on moving to an SSD. My M/B is maxed out with SATA HDD connections, and does not have the "gold colored" connections for a SATADOM. So aside from adding an expansion card to add more SATA connections or for a SATADOM, USB is the simplest solution.

Given the previous failures have only been singular, hence the reason to have mirrored boot drives, I had no reason to think both would fail simultaneously.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Mirrored means both are getting written to the same amount and if placed into service at the same time means there is a high likelihood they will fail at the same time.

 

[ChiknNutz]

Only the initial pair was installed at the same time. After that, they each then failed at different times, so only one old one was in play at any given time.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Regardless, SSD in USB enclosure is better than consumer USB flash drives.

 

[ThreeDee]

I picked up a couple 120GB SSD's for $20 and ran one of them via a USB to SATA cable for my boot drive for quite awhile on my old server.

Amazon.com

Now I just run a $10 32GB M.2 drive for booting

 

[gwpotter]

I was in the same boat. one of my boxes has limited sata ports, multiple usb flash drive failures. 2 usb to sata external adapters and 2 128gb ssd drives just installed today at a cost of $90.
Incredible speed increase on just the fresh install. usb flash took overnight to install, ssd on same usb bus took 10 minutes.
about the same cost as buiying replacemetn usb drives every 6 months.

 

[Evertb1]

I once was in a postion that I was short of Sata connectors but still wanted to boot from an SSD. That ofcourse can be resolved with an USB to Sata adapter or with an USB enclosure. However, I hate it to have stuf "dangling" outside my server case. So I bought a couple of items to resolve that:
A USB 3 adapter for a motherboard USB 3 header like this:
USB Pinheader
And an adapter like this:
USB A to SATA Adapter
The total price was around 20 euro's say 23 US dollars.

You can do the same with USB 2 headers if you have your USB 3 header in use already.

Sorry that the links are for Dutch webshops but on your part of this planet you should be able to find similair items.

 

[CrazyRam]

@Evertb1 That's a nice solution. Need to check if my motherboard has a USB2 header.