zfs corruption - USB thumb drive broken or not?

[Joel Linn]

Hi,
I needed to replace my boot drive some time ago and tried a new Kingston DT micro 3.1 32GB with version 9.10. Got some text files (like readme and stuff like that) corrupted right from the start. I where in a hurry so I didn't bother for some time.
I now tried to reinstall FreeNAS version 11 - same symptoms. I tried multiple times, every time different files reported corrupted right on the first boot.
I then used an external 2TB USB drive I had lying around and the systems reports everything is fine.

Checks done:
On FreeNAS system:
Memtest86+ 13 full passes, no errors.
On my workstation:
badblocks -w -s -o kingstonusb.log /dev/sdh , no errors.
f3write/f3read , no errors

Without badblocks and f3 i would have said it's the thumb drive, but I guess badblocks and f3 together are pretty thorough.
What do you guys think could have been the reason for the data corruption?

 

[rs225]

Could be a bad usb stick, or a bad port. Go easy on the badblocks on USB sticks, they aren't very durable to start with.

 

[Joel Linn]

Isn't the USB protocol checksummed as well? Is there some place where USB transmission errors would be logged?

 

[Jailer]

Why bother, they're cheap throw away items. Get a new stick and re install.

 

[rs225]

I don't know about any checksum, but whatever the case, USB is prone to corrupting data, whether it is hard disks, docks, or memory sticks. It could just be how poor/cheap the products are.

 

[Chris Moore]

Kingston DT micro 3.1

Without badblocks and f3 i would have said it's the thumb drive, but I guess badblocks and f3 together are pretty thorough.
What do you guys think could have been the reason for the data corruption?

I bet your server system board does not support USB 3.0... But I don't know anything about your hardware. How about giving us a rundown on that the way the forum rules stipulate?
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/updated-forum-rules-4-11-17.45124/

 

[Chris Moore]

Isn't the USB protocol checksummed as well? Is there some place where USB transmission errors would be logged?

Checksum is not going to make it work if there is some incompatibility of the hardware which is what this sounds like. How about a screenshot of what you are seeing ??

 

[Ericloewe]

Isn't the USB protocol checksummed as well?

Yes, of course.

Is there some place where USB transmission errors would be logged?

I don't think so. Physical layer errors are common enough that the data is retransmitted at a relatively low layer. It's not particularly useful information for users or even most developers.