Hello, all, new to Unraid and experiencing a problem with trying to get a SSD up and running as a cache drive. Important note, almost all the hardware here was from a planned PC build that never happened, so while this is the first time it's in use, a lot of it has been sitting in boxes for years, so I wouldn't rule out that the M.2 slot on the motherboard may just not work right.

 

So what's happened is that I assembled the PC, with the only new components being the PSU, one HDD (with plans to buy a couple more if all went well, but only one right now for the sake of testing things), and one M.2 nvme SSD, which is the only thing giving me trouble. When I hooked everything up, I got the standard "unmountable, no file system" message, and I followed guides to format the two drives. The HDD formatted and mounted without issue, the SSD just continues saying "no file system" after any attempt to format it. When I took the array offline to see if there were settings I need to mess with, the cache shows as Missing and lists the drive under the device dropdown, but it is not selectable in the dropdown menu. Pic below.

 

 

I asked on Reddit as well, and have tried the following: I ran the command 'lsscsi' (which shows the drive in the list) and 'nvme -list' (which does not show the drive). I did a new config, but the same thing happened. I've taken the drive out and put it in a Windows machine, since I want to format it anyway and there is currently no parity to mess up, and the drive works in that PC. Was able to format it and put data on it on Windows, but it won't format on Unraid.

 

The storage drive is working perfectly, and I've got some data on there now. So while I am very happy to do anything that will help format this SSD cache drive, I would prefer not to touch the storage drive (though I can if needed). I'm very new to Unraid and Linux in general, so I'm still learning how to do everything, but it's mostly been going smoothly. As I said in the beginning, this is an old motherboard and it might just be that the M.2 drive on the thing is shot, but I figured I'd check if there are any more steps I should try before jumping to that conclusion. Note that the motherboard only has a single M.2 slot, so while I was able to test the drive on my Windows PC, I cannot test it in another slot on Unraid.

 

I appreciate any and all support with this!

nastalgia-diagnostics-20250518-2033.zip

@Krickis missed your post before, the device is dropping offline during blkdiscard, which is like a full device TRIM:

May 18 19:34:23 NAStalgia emhttpd: shcmd (92): /sbin/blkdiscard /dev/nvme0n1p1

May 18 19:34:53 NAStalgia kernel: nvme nvme0: I/O tag 578 (8242) opcode 0x9 (I/O Cmd) QID 1 timeout, aborting req_op:DISCARD(3) size:4294966784

May 18 19:34:53 NAStalgia kernel: nvme nvme0: I/O tag 579 (2243) opcode 0x9 (I/O Cmd) QID 1 timeout, aborting req_op:DISCARD(3) size:4294966784

May 18 19:34:53 NAStalgia kernel: nvme nvme0: I/O tag 580 (0244) opcode 0x9 (I/O Cmd) QID 1 timeout, aborting req_op:DISCARD(3) size:4294966784

May 18 19:35:23 NAStalgia kernel: nvme nvme0: I/O tag 578 (8242) opcode 0x9 (I/O Cmd) QID 1 timeout, reset controller

May 18 19:38:34 NAStalgia kernel: nvme nvme0: Device not ready; aborting reset, CSTS=0x1

May 18 19:38:34 NAStalgia kernel: nvme nvme0: Abort status: 0x371

### [PREVIOUS LINE REPEATED 2 TIMES] ###

May 18 19:40:42 NAStalgia kernel: nvme nvme0: Device not ready; aborting reset, CSTS=0x1

May 18 19:40:42 NAStalgia kernel: nvme nvme0: Disabling device after reset failure: -19

This is typically a device issue, do you have a different one you can test with?