USB Disk not available for adding to pool: usb_alloc_device: Failure selecting configuration index 0: USB_ERR_SHORT_XFER

[robtalada]

I have a rack-mountable USB RAID enclosure with two brand new NAS grade 4TB disks. The disks are not available to add to a pool.
When checking the shell:

usb_alloc_device: Failure selecting configuration index 0:USB_ERR_SHORT_XFER, port 1, addr 2 (ignored) ugen1.2: at usbus1

Note: "Safe" reflects that I have the enclosure configured for hardware RAID 1 however I have also tried JBOD.

The ASM1352R controller is known online for not necessarily adhering to strict SCSI standards.
Is there a quirk or something I could add to overcome this? This device works properly in Windows 10. I did switch it to JBOD mode to see if it helped, no dice.

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

I have a rack-mountable USB RAID enclosure with two brand new NAS grade 4TB disks. The disks are not available to add to a pool.

Unless I am misunderstanding something you'll want to avoid this. It has two dings against it.

First it is a USB enclosure which adds a layer of indirection between your OS and your drives. FreeNAS and many of the disk monitoring tools require direct access to the drives; something that those USB enclosures can severely limit.

Additionally; it is a RAID enclosure. Folks do use RAID cards around here but typically only when flashed to IT mode such that they effectively operate as an HBA. Often times "pass through" or "JBOD" mode still causes issues for some folks.

I hesitate to offer any further advice than this because even if you're able to get this up and running I suspect that you're going to have stability and reliability issues down the road. FreeNAS just wasn't designed for this type of hardware.

 

[robtalada]

Unless I am misunderstanding something you'll want to avoid this. It has two dings against it.

First it is a USB enclosure which adds a layer of indirection between your OS and your drives...

What about two WD MyBook USB hard disks? I've used these very reliably in the past for years with no issue. Apart from missing some sensor/smart data, is there any problem with using these with FreeNAS? Any way to mitigate unforeseen risks? Reason I ask is because I've found using such an arrangement for backups to be a good use for laptops that aren't suitable for much else any more.

If there is a mechanism of ZFS that makes use with USB controllers unreliable or dangerous, what is it?

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Reason I ask is because I've found using such an arrangement for backups to be a good use for laptops that aren't suitable for much else any more.

If there is a mechanism of ZFS that makes use with USB controllers unreliable or dangerous, what is it?

I'd say it comes down to expectations when using hardware not designed for a particular purpose. With an HBA or card in IT mode you have certain guarantees that the operating system has direct access to the drives to manage them. With USB enclosures this might not be the case and they may be unreliable; this could affect your reliability and experience with the system in a negative way. I also wonder how hard it would be to put a drive into a system that was pulled from a failed USB enclosure and have it read properly by zfs. As with a lot of things whether you do it or not depends on your situation and exact hardware. In some cases, it may make more sense for folks to use systems other than FreeNAS that are designed with other hardware in mind.

 

[robtalada]

I also wonder how hard it would be to put a drive into a system that was pulled from a failed USB enclosure and have it read properly by zfs.

I am going to test this and report back.

 

[pschatz100]

You didn't say anything about the enclosure or the disks, so it is not possible to comment further - it could be that the usb controller is not supported by FreeBSD (the underlying OS for FreeNAS.) I don't think this is a ZFS issue.

There is a lot of hardware that is supported by Windows but is not supported by FreeBSD.

 

[robtalada]

The ASM1352R controller

I did mention the controller, which is the only bit that matters, everything else is just sheet metal. Not that anything really matters at this point though since nobody seems even remotely interested in helping at this point, which is of course, perfectly fine.

I do not understand the intricacies of ZFS or why it cannot adequately use USB controllers. I can't see it as being any bigger of a risk than just not using ZFS at all. I don't buy that the USB controller will actually cause data corruption simply because I've successfully restored hundreds of files/backups from ZFS on USB. I've been doing so reliably for over 6 years so it's news to me.

All I get are cargo cult/regurgitated/copy-paste explanations such as "its not designed to do it" or "it needs direct access to the hardware." OK, fine. But why? I am actually interested in knowing why. And if you don't know why what you're saying is true, how can you so easily regurgitate it as fact? It sounds like some sort of best practice that became blind religion over time, even as things got better.

My intuition says mainstream USB hard drive controllers are perfectly capable of confirming to ZFS whether data was or was not written, just as they would do for any file system, whether or not the disk is ready to respond and the status of the heads. The controller likely manages its own write distribution and simply discards/ignores direction from ZFS which YES, reduces the merit of ZFS but makes the drives no less dangerous than they would be in any other file system.

You may ask, why then even use FreeNAS if you don't care whether ZFS is working optimally? Because FreeNAS has an amazing web interface and can create NFS shares extremely quickly. That's it, that's the only reason. I don't care about ZFS. The data isn't important enough. In fact, because one of the backup software application I use will run only on Windows, I'm trying out a mirrored Windows Storage Space with BitLocker enabled for writing that data onto a couple 4TB USB MyBooks. It's working well, I've done multiple large file restores from these backups.

 

[robtalada]

If anyone cares, the details of the hardware are given in my question, posted here: https://superuser.com/questions/1484421/freenas-is-not-recognizing-usb-raid-controller

 

[pschatz100]

I did mention the controller, which is the only bit that matters, everything else is just sheet metal. Not that anything really matters at this point though since nobody seems even remotely interested in helping at this point, which is of course, perfectly fine.

There is no need for the snarky comments. Certainly not any way to get help from the folks who volunteer their time and offer to share their experience. You didn't even bother to follow the forum guidelines by posting a description of your hardware.

I will offer a couple of things for you to consider:

1) FreeBSD, the underlying operating system for FreeNAS, is not Windows. FreeBSD and FreeNAS do not support all the hardware variations that Windows support - so to say that something works on Windows therefore it ought to work on FreeNAS is not correct.

2) Your problem is most likely not related to ZFS because you can't add the disks to a pool. Barring an actual hardware problem, it is likely that FreeNAS does not have drivers for your device. I found the following comment in a review: "UASP works fine under macOS and Windows 10. Does not work under Linux. Reason being that this enclosure uses the ASM1352R USB controller, which does not properly implement its specifications; the macOS and Windows 10 kernels have drivers that patch it but the Linux mainstream kernel does not."

Good luck.

 

[Ericloewe]

There is no need for the snarky comments. Certainly not any way to get help from the folks who volunteer their time and offer to share their experience. You didn't even bother to follow the forum guidelines by posting a description of your hardware.

I will offer a couple of things for you to consider:

1) FreeBSD, the underlying operating system for FreeNAS, is not Windows. FreeBSD and FreeNAS do not support all the hardware variations that Windows support - so to say that something works on Windows therefore it ought to work on FreeNAS is not correct.

2) Your problem is most likely not related to ZFS because you can't add the disks to a pool. Barring an actual hardware problem, it is likely that FreeNAS does not have drivers for your device. I found the following comment in a review: "UASP works fine under macOS and Windows 10. Does not work under Linux. Reason being that this enclosure uses the ASM1352R USB controller, which does not properly implement its specifications; the macOS and Windows 10 kernels have drivers that patch it but the Linux mainstream kernel does not."

Good luck.

This seems to sum things up nicely. It doesn't work because it's a piece of crap. Some systems have workarounds, but FreeBSD doesn't seem to have anything at the moment. Possible quirks or other workarounds would best be answered in the FreeBSD forums, since we rarely deal with such things here.