I was hoping to use this docking station I already had: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B019DNBU7G/ref=sspa_dk_hqp_detail_aax_0?smid=A1ZAFAL1WND4H&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExNE9CQTkyRkU5TVlXJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNDAwNTg4MTdJRzYxSkRMWTlXTSZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNTIwMzYyOUozNUpETEw5N0pQJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfaHFwX3NoYXJlZCZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1

 

I want to preclear 4 drives I plan on putting into a new box I'm building along with the 3 in my existing small server.  I put the first drive in the TARGET slot of the enclosure and its plugged in and on.  I cannot see the drive anywhere in Unraid.  During the process I also installed the BinHex preclear Docker to get ready and futzing with it using the -l function it does show the USB Docking Station as the only option to preclear because its not part of the array, so the box does know the docking station is attached and working, but it doesn't show the physical drive I have plugged into the station.  

 

Are dual slot stations like this just not suitable for preclearing drives?  Or is there something I have to refresh in Unraid to get the unassigned drive to show?

 

**During typing I also tried adding a 1TB drive I had around.  In the screenshot you can see where I first only showed one USB Dock drive, now I do show two so I am assuming the preclear program does actually see the drives but can't translate the serial numbers to me?  I have to know the SDF is Bay one and SDG is Bay two.  Can I preclear the drives from this stage even though they don't show in the Unraid OS

 

I am running Unraid 6.7.2.

Maybe I was just misreading.  I had thought that USB drives would show in this version of Unraid, but I installed Unassigned Devices and I do see the two of them sitting there.  Hopefully this means I can preclear them through this Docking Station.  

That docking station has the same identifiers for both slots, so it won't work, Unraid requires unique device identifiers.

Also note that some USB enclosures use a custom partition, which will also cause problems.

On 11/29/2019 at 3:31 PM, johnnie.black said:

That docking station has the same identifiers for both slots, so it won't work, Unraid requires unique device identifiers.

Any idea whether below USB dockingstation will be supported by Unraid?

 

https://www.banggood.com/de/Orico-DS500U3-USB3_0-Multi-Bay-3_5inch-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-Magnetic-type-HDD-SSD-Docking-Station-p-1352253.html?gmcCountry=DE&currency=EUR&cur_warehouse=CN&createTmp=1&ID=47757&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=cpc_bgs&utm_content=frank&utm_campaign=frank-ssc-de-css-all-19bf11&ad_id=380597671089&gclid=CjwKCAjwssD0BRBIEiwA-JP5rEB-uCJV9AqPiM8X6ajkRLRWW5p_kzAhAFeEn5Ub9o6kJeTvRgB_yhoCe6wQAvD_BwE

Related question: do I need to format as XFS or does NTFS also work if I want to include the drives from the station into an array? I may do this without parity.

1 hour ago, steve1977 said:

Any idea whether below USB dockingstation will be supported by Unraid?

No, sorry.

 

1 hour ago, steve1977 said:

Related question: do I need to format as XFS or does NTFS also work if I want to include the drives from the station into an array? I may do this without parity.

NTFS will work but only as unassigned devices, never on the array.

just thinking to extend my storage also with the orico of 5bay drives, did you @steve1977 were able to got this running?

or any other USB enclosure

1 hour ago, segator said:

thinking to extend my storage also with the orico of 5bay drives

  USB is not recommended for disks in the parity array or cache. Some reasons already given in this thread:

On 11/29/2019 at 2:31 AM, JorgeB said:

That docking station has the same identifiers for both slots, so it won't work, Unraid requires unique device identifiers.

On 11/29/2019 at 2:31 AM, JorgeB said:

Also note that some USB enclosures use a custom partition, which will also cause problems.

Another reason is some implementations of USB don't really provide a reliable, permanent connection. If a disk gets disconnected it is out-of-sync and has to be rebuilt. Frequent rebuilds are possible due to this problem.

 

And another reason, parity operations ideally happen in parallel. If it must access multiple disks through a single connection, it is going to significantly affect performance.

 

There are external enclosures that provide SAS/SATA connections for each disk. Those are what you should consider.

 

I am very happy with my Orico enclosures. I have a 5-bay and a 8-bay that work really well together with Unraid. Gives me flexibility and they are surprisingly fast. I know USB in the array is not recommended, but it works well for my use case.

 

I would have preferred to use two 8-bay Orico enclosures, but unfortunately never got this working due to the device ID issue mentioned above. I even bought a different model of the 8-bay (one being USB-B and the other being USB-C), but this didn't work either. It's really a pity that this doesn't work with Unraid, but seems from the responses in this thread that it is just not possible 😞 Hope someone comes up with a work-around.

Another thing to watch out with Orico enclosures. The 8-bay ones don't seem to support 18TB disks. No idea why and whether there will be some FW update to solve it.

@steve1977 I have some questions for you

• rebuild a disk or parity check I supose when all disks are active is extremely slow, right?
• SMART per disk works well?
• Spin up/down disks does it works?

 

On 11/9/2020 at 6:12 AM, steve1977 said:

I am very happy with my Orico enclosures. I have a 5-bay and a 8-bay that work really well together with Unraid. Gives me flexibility and they are surprisingly fast. I know USB in the array is not recommended, but it works well for my use case.

 

I would have preferred to use two 8-bay Orico enclosures, but unfortunately never got this working due to the device ID issue mentioned above. I even bought a different model of the 8-bay (one being USB-B and the other being USB-C), but this didn't work either. It's really a pity that this doesn't work with Unraid, but seems from the responses in this thread that it is just not possible 😞 Hope someone comes up with a work-around.

 

Hi

any idea if one of 8-bays that you tried was NS800U3 ? I am willing to buy this one but only if will support ID.

Is there any way to override IDs and add them somehow manually?

this topic is very interesting, is there any option to use a UASP docker in Unraid?