Attaching two USB bays

[steve1977]

I know it is not recommended, but for various reasons I am exploring to connect 2 or 3 USB bays to my Unraid computer.

 

It worked very successfully with one bay, where I can see all 5 disks. Unfortunately, this does not work when attaching the second bay. Only disks from one bay show up.

 

Given they are two different bays, I'd hope and anticipate that the two bays have different UUIDs, so this should hopefully not be the issue.

 

I am including the diagnostic log. Thanks for your help!

tower-diagnostics-20200415-1900.zip

[JorgeB]

16 minutes ago, steve1977 said:

I'd hope and anticipate that the two bays have different UUIDs

That is exacly the problem, both enclosures use identical identifiers for the disks, only one will work.

[steve1977]

There is an unraid option to change uuid, will this solve my issue?

[JorgeB]

41 minutes ago, steve1977 said:

There is an unraid option to change uuid

There's an option on UD to change a filesystem UUID, but tha's not the problem, and there's no option to change how a device is detected.

[steve1977]

So, the solution is to buy a second USB bay from a different manufacturer?

[JorgeB]

Yes, and even that it's not a garantee, since many are just a rebrand of the same Chinese stuff.

[steve1977]

True... Maybe a 4-bay from the same brand (5-bay now). Higher likelihood to then have different identifier numbers?

[JorgeB]

No idea.

[steve1977]

On 4/15/2020 at 8:16 PM, JorgeB said:

There's an option on UD to change a filesystem UUID, but tha's not the problem, and there's no option to change how a device is detected.

Let me bring this thread up again as it is driving me crazy not being able to connect both of my USB enclosures.

 

Is there absolutely no work-around? What could impact the identifier? Connecting to USB vs USB-C? Using some USB hub in between? Any other creatuve idea how I can use two USB enclosures with Unraid?

 

Any magic appreciated!

[JorgeB]

2 minutes ago, steve1977 said:

Is there absolutely no work-around?

Not that I known of, only by using different models, and some times even different models can have the same identification string, since one Chinese factory can make them for various brands.

[steve1977]

Thanks! The ID cannot be altered by connecting to a different port (e.g., by connecting to USB-C)?

 

Also, will this limitation remain once Unraid will support two arrays in the future?

[JorgeB]

8 minutes ago, steve1977 said:

The ID cannot be altered by connecting to a different port (e.g., by connecting to USB-C)?

Never tried but almost certain it won't.

 

8 minutes ago, steve1977 said:

Also, will this limitation remain once Unraid will support two arrays in the future?

Yes, Unraid requires each device to have a unique identification, doesn't matter where you're going to assign it.

[steve1977]

I moved one of the two enclosure to the USB-C port. Some progress! I got the disks to show up on UD. Not sure whether this means progress or just a short-term luck that will go away again?

 

I can actually access the disks that are formatted in NTFS. However, I cannot access the XFS disks. I changed the UIDs to make sure that this isn't causing my issue, but this didn't solve it.

 

Any hope or is this progress mis-leading?

[JorgeB]

Diags might giver a clue.