Hello,

 

I have a USB Mediasonic 4-bay DAS. I created an array consisting of five drives (the DAS + 1 internal SSD). There is no parity drives because it kept erroring out when I added a parity drive.

 

After some Googling, I suspect the issue is that I'm connecting HDDs to Unraid via USB. Apparently this really isn't ideal?

 

My DAS also supports eSATA, so my plan is to connect the DAS using this instead of USB. I'm hoping this will rectify the problems I'm facing.

 

So my questions are as follows:

 

1. Am I right in thinking things will be more reliable with an eSATA connection instead of USB?
2. How can I safely move all my data to the internal SSD away from the DAS in preperation for this operation?
3. What's the best way to backup my entire Unraid instance somewhere else in case this goes really wrong? What would the recovery process be like?

 

Thank you :)

 

eSATA might be more reliable, but still will involve port multiplier assuming only one connection to the enclosure.

Another current thread that might give you a better idea:

 

 

Thanks! so either a USB or eSata port multipler is fine? Or would eSata still be preferable?

 

How would I go about shifting all the data (most importantly my VM data), from the DAS to my internal drive? I don't want to lose any data when getting rid of my current array.

19 minutes ago, superRaid said:

either a USB or eSata port multipler is fine?

Neither are ideal, eSATA might be better. Did you read the other thread I linked?

 

20 minutes ago, superRaid said:

shifting all the data (most importantly my VM data)

Ideally your VM/docker data would already be on cache anyway.

 

Attach diagnostics to your NEXT post in this thread.

Yes, I read through it but I'm a little confused. From what I can see a port multipler is like a USB hub but for SATA. So it converts one SATA port into multiple SATA ports?

 

I'm not sure how that would work with my current setup since I have a NUC connected to a DAS - the two connect via a signal connection, either USB or eSata. It's not like I have a PC case with space to store HDDs (beyond having them in the DAS). Forgive me if I've misunderstood.

 

I'll follow-up with the diagnostics. Thanks again.

The point of the other thread was the user decided to go with a better hardware configuration with a SAS controller connecting to a SAS enclosure. SAS allows multiple connections to be combined into one cable instead of the single USB or eSATA connection you are trying to use.

Looks like a SAS enclosure is going to cost me quite a few pennies... Unfortunately, just not possible.

 

I think my next best option is to use the RAID system built into the DAS? What you think? Not ideal, I know...

 

To do that, I'll need to move everything onto my internal SSD. What would the steps look like for that? Diagnostics attached.

 

Thanks

 

Edited August 23, 20223 yr by superRaid