USB flash drive is only recognized at second attempt

[Schmonz]

Hello,

I recently purchased a new USB drive to back up my existing system disk on a mirrored volume. Unfortunately, the drive is not recognized upon boot, leading to a critical error condition every time I start up the FreeNAS server. I have to pull the USB stick from the port and put it back in again to get the system to recognize it. I then get the expected messages from the kernel, and the system state turns green again shortly after:

Code:

[root@freenas ~]# dmesg
...
ugen1.2: <JetFlash Mass Storage Device> at usbus1							   
umass1 on uhub0																 
umass1: <JetFlash Mass Storage Device, class 0/0, rev 3.00/11.00, addr 1> on usb
us1																			 
umass1:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x8100								   
umass1:12:1: Attached to scbus12												
da1 at umass-sim1 bus 1 scbus12 target 0 lun 0								 
da1: <JetFlash Transcend 16GB 1100> Removable Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device   
da1: Serial Number 02Y2575NFBUGNDI7											 
da1: 400.000MB/s transfers													 
da1: 15064MB (30851072 512 byte sectors)										
da1: quirks=0x12<NO_6_BYTE,NO_RC16>											 

Do you know what needs to be done to make FreeNAS recognize the USB drive at boot? Do you need any more data about the underlying hardware? If so, how can I retrieve it? I am no expert in FreeBSD, so I am not sure what could be causing this behaviour or how to triage it properly.

Thanks!

 

[Ericloewe]

It would help to know the exact error output.

 

[Schmonz]

Hi, sorry it took so long for me to answer, I was quite busy the past week. Here is what I see in the web interface when I boot up FreeNAS:

This is what I see on the command line:


# zpool list
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROO
T
freenas-boot 14.4G 1.03G 13.3G - - 7% 1.00x DEGRADED -
mainvolume 14.5T 4.78T 9.72T - 14% 32% 1.00x ONLINE /mnt


Now I remove the USB drive and plug it back in as described. The error in the web interface vanishes and I can see the dmesg output that I posted earlier.

zpool list looks normal now as well:


# zpool list
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROO
T
freenas-boot 14.4G 1.04G 13.3G - - 7% 1.00x ONLINE -
mainvolume 14.5T 4.78T 9.72T - 14% 32% 1.00x ONLINE /mnt


Please tell me if you need more information and where I can retrieve it.

Thanks!

 

[Ericloewe]

Please post images directly to the forum and not to third-party image hosts. Just copy/paste them into your messages.

Is the offending drive the same model as the other one?

 

[Schmonz]

Please post images directly to the forum and not to third-party image hosts. Just copy/paste them into your messages.

Done. Thanks for the hint!

Is the offending drive the same model as the other one?

No, it is from a different vendor.

 

[Ericloewe]

Okay so that's a bit less mysterious. Unfortunately, crap USB flash drives are very frequent and there's probably not much that can be done that is worth doing. I recommend you try a different model, ideally from a more reputable brand (SanDisk, Toshiba, Corsair, ...).

 

[Schmonz]

So Transcend JetFlash is not a "reputable brand" where you live? I am sorry, but this is one of the best sticks I could get. If you are unable to help me here I will rather try a different OS than a different USB drive.

 

[Ericloewe]

So Transcend JetFlash is not a "reputable brand"

No, it is not. The same goes for the vast majority of USB flash drives out there. They're cheap for a reason.