USB 3.0 Lynx Point (Haswell) fixes

[jonnn]

http://freshbsd.org/commit/freebsd/r255965

^^Has the above fixes for USB 3.0 stability been incorporated into FreeNAS. If not, would it possible to do so?

 

[cyberjock]

Not sure. My guess is yes based on the date, but as far as I know USB3 is still flaky "on average" with FreeBSD. A few chips work fine but the majority do not. We had so many problems that FreeNAS has USB3 disabled by default. Most will still function at USB2 speeds though.

You can try putting a ticket in at bugs.freenas.org and a developer should be able to tell you. Or you can check out the code yourself and see if its implemented.

 

[Z300M]

Not sure. My guess is yes based on the date, but as far as I know USB3 is still flaky "on average" with FreeBSD. A few chips work fine but the majority do not. We had so many problems that FreeNAS has USB3 disabled by default. Most will still function at USB2 speeds though.

You can try putting a ticket in at bugs.freenas.org and a developer should be able to tell you. Or you can check out the code yourself and see if its implemented.

There seems to be an update on this as far as FreeBSD is concerned; any reason why this wouldn't work in FreeNAS as well?

http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.co...0-support-on-Intel-H97-chipset-td5971871.html

 

[cyberjock]

Not a clue as I'm not a developer. That's also for FreeBSD 11, so it may or may not even be compatible with 9.3.

Ultimately there's a few reasons why USB3 support being absent in FreeNAS isn't "that" big of a deal in my opinion:

1. It doesn't affect bootup times, shutdown times, or server performance.
2. USB as a data transfer medium from hard drives, is just not reliable for a bunch of reasons. Some are hardware based, some are real-world situations that can't be fixed with engineering, etc. We've had so much data loss from USB that we don't recommend it, at all, except as a boot device.
3. There's a limited amount of programmer's resources available, so the devs can focus on things that are very important and do affect things like server performance and reliability, or they can focus on things that don't affect 99%+ of FreeNAS users (and those users aren't going to use USB for data drives because the same 99%+ of users know that USB is a bad idea for a file server).

There are some tickets out there on USB problems. You are welcome to ask if the devs know about that fix. But they probably know about it already. :P

 

[Z300M]

Not a clue as I'm not a developer. That's also for FreeBSD 11, so it may or may not even be compatible with 9.3.

Ultimately there's a few reasons why USB3 support being absent in FreeNAS isn't "that" big of a deal in my opinion:

1. It doesn't affect bootup times, shutdown times, or server performance.
2. USB as a data transfer medium from hard drives, is just not reliable for a bunch of reasons. Some are hardware based, some are real-world situations that can't be fixed with engineering, etc. We've had so much data loss from USB that we don't recommend it, at all, except as a boot device.
3. There's a limited amount of programmer's resources available, so the devs can focus on things that are very important and do affect things like server performance and reliability, or they can focus on things that don't affect 99%+ of FreeNAS users (and those users aren't going to use USB for data drives because the same 99%+ of users know that USB is a bad idea for a file server).

There are some tickets out there on USB problems. You are welcome to ask if the devs know about that fix. But they probably know about it already. :p

I certainly wouldn't use a USB-connected drive as part of a ZFS pool, but, if I have to destroy a pool and recreate it with additional drives, copying its data to two (or more) USB-connected drives first can be a convenient strategy, so the faster the interface the better. (Yes, I know that people say that FreeNAS systems still need backups, but my FreeNAS system is my backup, replacing a tape drive and a shelf-full of tapes).

 

[faulerbeamter]

We had so many problems that FreeNAS has USB3 disabled by default. Most will still function at USB2 speeds though.

If I got you right, USB 3.0 Ports (enabled in BIOS) might work @ USB 2.0 speed while USB 3.0 stays disabled in FreeNAS? Without any tweaks or workarounds?

 

[Ericloewe]

If I got you right, USB 3.0 Ports (enabled in BIOS) might work @ USB 2.0 speed while USB 3.0 stays disabled in FreeNAS? Without any tweaks or workarounds?

This is true with FreeNAS 9.2.1.6-9.2.1.9 (at least) on Supermicro X10 motherboards (at least the X10SLL+-F/X10SLM+-F/X10SLM+-LN4F/X10SLH-F line).

 

[Z300M]

This is true with FreeNAS 9.2.1.6-9.2.1.9 (at least) on Supermicro X10 motherboards (at least the X10SLL+-F/X10SLM+-F/X10SLM+-LN4F/X10SLH-F line).

The USB 3.0 ports work at USB 2.0 speeds with FreeNAS 9.3 on my X10SL7-F system.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Where can i check that USB3 is disabled in FreeNAS?

EDIT: Sorry, it is in the documentation:

when using a USB stick, USB 3.0 support is disabled by default as it currently is not compatible with some hardware, including Haswell (Lynx point) chipsets. If you receive a “failed with error 19” message when trying to boot FreeNAS®, make sure that xHCI/USB3 is disabled in the system BIOS. While this will downclock the USB ports to 2.0, the bootup and shutdown times will not be significantly different. To see if USB 3.0 support works with your hardware, follow the instructions in Tunables to create a “Tunable” named xhci_load, set its value to YES, and reboot the system.

 

[Ericloewe]

Whera can i check that USB3 is disabled in FreeNAS?

If you didn't enable it, it's disabled.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Yeah, sorry, it is in the documentation. I edited my post.
Thank you, though.