External USB enclosure only showing one drive?

[Shorty1353]

Hello everyone! I apologize if this question has been answered before, but I promise I did my best to search for answers and can't come up with anything.

I'm trying to set up my array using a Beelink Mini S12 Pro as the brains (Alder Lake processor) using a external USB HDD enclosure (the "Syba 8 Bay Tool Less Tray Hot Swappabe 2.5" 3.5" SATA Non Raid External USB 3.0 Enclosure" from Amazon to be specific. Inside of it I have 2 Seagate Exos X20 18tb drives.

My plan was to use the internal NVMe drive (~500gb) as a cache, and use one of the 18tb's for parity and one for storage, with plans to expand to additional disks down the line.

I was able to get Unraid installed and running, but I'm having an issue where only one of the external drives will be recognized. I've verified both drives are working independently. Currently I've turned off VT-d in the BIOS as I've read older posts that it can cause issues with drive identification, but it didn't solve my issue. Can anybody point me in the right direction as to what could be going wrong?

Thank you all!

[trurl]

USB not recommended for assigned disks for many reasons.

[Shorty1353]

I know that USB isn't ideal, but I wasn't sure how else I could make that N100 based mini PC work. I posted on the subreddit asking for advice before ordering the enclosure (as I was unaware of this forum) and my post was removed. Not opposed to returning the enclosure but I don't know how else I could make that device work. I was specifically recommended the S12 Pro as I was told the CPU was capable of 4 concurrent 4k transcodes, and I plan to run Jellyfin.

Wondering if there are any workarounds or alternate methods that would work?

[Hoopster]

29 minutes ago, Shorty1353 said:

I was able to get Unraid installed and running, but I'm having an issue where only one of the external drives will be recognized. I've verified both drives are working independently. Currently I've turned off VT-d in the BIOS as I've read older posts that it can cause issues with drive identification, but it didn't solve my issue. Can anybody point me in the right direction as to what could be going wrong?

Unraid tracks disks in the array by serial number.  Sometimes these multi-disk external enclosures do not report individual serial numbers to Unraid, therefore, all it can "see" is one disk (the only serial number the enclosure reports).

 

As trurl mentioned, USB attached drives for array/pool disks is not recommended for this and other reasons.  USB is prone to random disconnects/reconnects and this wreaks havoc wtih Unraid.  USB attached drives are fine as unassigned devices that are not a permanent part of an array/pool in Unraid.

[Shorty1353]

41 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

Unraid tracks disks in the array by serial number.  Sometimes these multi-disk external enclosures do not report individual serial numbers to Unraid, therefore, all it can "see" is one disk (the only serial number the enclosure reports).

 

As trurl mentioned, USB attached drives for array/pool disks is not recommended for this and other reasons.  USB is prone to random disconnects/reconnects and this wreaks havoc wtih Unraid.  USB attached drives are fine as unassigned devices that are not a permanent part of an array/pool in Unraid.

Do you have any recommendations for alternate ways that I could attach these disks to the Mini PC I'm running everything off of? It's a Beelink Mini S12 Pro, this model to be precise https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BVFS94J5

I'm willing to order whatever I need to to have a functioning setup, just not really sure what my options would be otherwise.

Edited June 22 by Shorty1353

[Hoopster]

7 hours ago, Shorty1353 said:

Do you have any recommendations for alternate ways that I could attach these disks to the Mini PC

Unfortunately, no.  Mini PCs have very limited connectivity options. They are obviously not large enough for any significant internal storage and the only external connectivity option is USB.  Frankly, I have never used a Mini PC or external storage of any type for Unraid. The smallest I have gone is a Mini-ITX motherboard.

 

Perhaps there are others in these forums who can point you to something that might work for external storage, but, USB is really not recommended for several reasons.  Most working external storage options I have seen in these forums are eSATA/SATA/SAS-based but that is not available (AFAIK) with Mini PCs.

Edited June 22 by Hoopster

[Kilrah]

7 hours ago, Shorty1353 said:

I wasn't sure how else I could make that N100 based mini PC work.

You don't.

 

There are quite a few people using them in the community but usually as an auxiliary thing to run services while connected to storage that is located on another machine.

E.g. have another NAS with the storage but no transcoding capabilities, it can be cheaper/less power hungry to get one of these mini pcs to run Plex on than adding a GPU.

Edited June 22 by Kilrah

[Shorty1353]

11 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

You don't.

 

There are quite a few people using them in the community but usually as an auxiliary thing to run services while connected to storage that is located on another machine.

E.g. have another NAS with the storage but no transcoding capabilities, it can be cheaper/less power hungry to get one of these mini pcs to run Plex on than adding a GPU.

See, I think this is where I got confused when I assumed that the device doing the transcoding was also the device they were using to run UnRAID altogether. Oh well, I have opened an Amazon return for the enclosure I bought. I did read quite a few people saying they've had some degree of success with the QNAP TL-D800C, so I ordered one to see if it works. I figure if it doesn't I can just send it back and start figuring out an actual build with the internal SATA capabilities that I'd need. Worst case, I'm sure I can find a use for that little N100.

[itimpi]

I have seen some M2->SATA cards that provides SATA ports that could then be used with an eSATA compatible external enclosure (assuming there is no onboard SATA port).  I think there may also be M2->SAS adapters available.   I must admit, though, that I have no actual experience of such devices and how well they would work.  I could see running the cabling to the external enclosure might be an issue. 

 

Would be interesting to get feedback from someone who can comment on whether this is really a viable option or not as the tiny form factor PC's are extremely attractive for home use.   It is likely to be an issue that continues to be of interest for home users going forward.

[Frank1940]

I have two of the mini/micro computers here.  Both are running Windows11 now.  (One started out with WIN10 PRO and the upgrade process to WIN11 was a tricky one as the BIOS had to be upgrade first.)   I purchased them to use as set-top boxes to run KODI for HDTV setups.  One of them right now is being used a play-around PC when I have to test some confirmation out that I would rather not try on my regular PC.  I have some thoughts on them.

 

First, they are sourced from China and most of them are the manufacturers that are totally unknown in the USA.  With the exception of Beeline, they seem to come and disappear in a short period of time.  Many seem not to have a USA presence other than perhaps a reseller.  (If you are outside the USA, consider your situation for your country.)  

 

All of the ones that I have researched seem to be using laptop type chips.  They seldom list the support chip sets.   This become important as most of the connectivity is through USB ports and it has been pretty well established that the reliability of a USB connection often depends on their design of those internal ports.  (Using a M2->SAS device would be a real mechanical nightmare in the ones that I have looked at!)  Both of mine has a single SATA connector for an internal SSD/HD but using a SATA port expander (if that animal even exists) would entail a performance hit.   USB-C using USB3.1 and USB3.2 (Not all USB-C ports have 3.1 and 3.2 properly configured!) may turn out to be a more reliable/rugged solution than the older USB2/USB3 variations.  But again, we are dependent on those internal chip sets.  (Remember that there are HBA cards that have issues with Unraid!)  

 

I suspect that successful mini/micro setups will entail a careful selection of parts to achieve a stable setup.  It not be as simple as ordering any MB, CPU, memory, and PS and slapping these parts in a case.  Next thing I wonder, if this turns out to be true, will the setup still turn out be cheaper, smaller, consume less power than a careful selection of normal desktop PC components.  Quality usually ends up costing money...  (One of the problems that happens when folks are 'designing' an Unraid server using standard parts is feature creep.  Let's use a little faster CPU, MB with a couple of more PCI slots, a tad more memory, etc...) 

 

@Shorty1353, do not let me discourage you.   Continue to experiment with your setup.  Let us know if you have success in getting it to work.

Edited June 22 by Frank1940
"do not let me discourage you" was "do let me discourage you"

[trurl]

One possible solution to some of the problems with USB in Unraid is to use an enclosure that supports UASP. This will ensure that each disk presents its actual serial number, native drive size, and SMART reports. Probably won't help with disconnects though.

 

You can probably live with disconnects if you don't have parity in the array, and any pools you create, such as cache, are single disk pools. This way, nothing can get out of sync since there is nothing in sync to begin with. Of course, this all means you have no redundancy, but you should always have backups of anything important and irreplaceable anyway.

[Hoopster]

10 hours ago, Shorty1353 said:

Worst case, I'm sure I can find a use for that little N100.

If you are interested in a powerful and flexible firewall/router for your LAN, the Mini PC would make a good OPNSense or pfSense box.  I have OPNSense running on an N100-based mini PC. Of course, mine does have four NICs.

Edited June 22 by Hoopster