Hi,

 

I have a USB box with 5 disks connected to Unraid by USB, it was working fine but now my disks are dropped from the array. I have attached the logs and an image with the array and the External USB's dropped as unassigned devices.

 

Has something similar happened to anyone?

 

 

Logs

 

 

As you have seen, USB connections are too unreliable for the parity array or cache pool. The only way I would consider USB for the array is if it was strictly a backup array, and parity wasn't used. Otherwise, you will constantly be rebuilding due to disks being disabled and out-of-sync with parity.

Why are you even bothering with those small external disks anyway?

Just do a New Config without those disks and rebuild parity. If they have anything on them you want on the array just mount them as Unassigned Devices and copy the data.

2 hours ago, trurl said:

Why are you even bothering with those small external disks anyway?

This was test disks, I was thinking of bought 10TB disks to expand my storage capacity. I don´t know if the reason for the drop is because the box put the disks to sleep

Edited July 29, 20205 yr by Jandrop

Do you mean you were testing whether to use the USB box? I would say it failed.

Multiple disks on one connection is going to be a serious bottleneck for parity checks, rebuilds, etc. All disks must be accessed simultaneously for those.

 

And as noted, USB is a bad idea anyway.

1 hour ago, trurl said:

Multiple disks on one connection is going to be a serious bottleneck for parity checks, rebuilds, etc. All disks must be accessed simultaneously for those.

 

And as noted, USB is a bad idea anyway.

Then do you have any idea to expand my storage capacity? I have a HPE Microserver GEN10 Plus.

Edited July 29, 20205 yr by Jandrop

3 minutes ago, Jandrop said:

Then do you have any idea to expand my storage capacity? I have a HPE Microserver GEN10 Plus.

You could try to use an external housing with eSata or with Thunderbolt. I use a thunderbolt one and its working fine.

Just now, Lindworm said:

You could try to use an external housing with eSata or with Thunderbolt. I use a thunderbolt one and its working fine.

But this microserver doesn´t have eSata either Thunderbolt and the only PCIe that have I will use for a cache nvme disk

Just now, Jandrop said:

But this microserver doesn´t have eSata either Thunderbolt and the only PCIe that have I will use for a cache nvme disk

I don't see a way then. USB is far too unreliable to act as a connection to array drives. I'd sacrifice the nvme and go with an pcei thunderbolt/eSata adapter and use some cheap ssd's as cache. NVME in such a raid system is not realy that much of a difference. The nvme is better suited for a gaming pc or something.

Ok thanks for the advice

Edited July 29, 20205 yr by Jandrop

33 minutes ago, Jandrop said:

Ok thanks for the advice

If you have space for a PCI-E card then you can add an LSI SAS controller with external connections, configure as HBA and then use external storage. The cards can be picked up cheaply and flashed into the HBA mode.

 

Suitable SAS enclosures such as SilverStone SST-TS431S are now mostly discontinued, but you might get something on Ebay or you can build your own with a SAS breakout and a standard power supply in any small mulitidrive case. You just need to sort the cabling and make sure the powersupply is on before starting unraid so the drives are detected. This is usally by forcing the PSU to run my linking a couple of pins effectively what the SAS external enclosures do.

 

I have a SilverStone SST-TS431S and it works flawlessly at full drive speed. I've never had a drive drop out or any other issue in the last couple of years and I peak at ~180mbps during parity with 4 x 8TB drives in it.

 

Have a google for build your own DAS or SAS enclosure and you should find some ideas.

 

AD

 

 

Edited July 29, 20205 yr by Decto

15 hours ago, Jandrop said:

this microserver doesn´t have eSata

The only difference between eSATA and SATA is the connector on one end of the cable. If you have a free SATA port you can get a SATA > eSATA cable

4 minutes ago, trurl said:

The only difference between eSATA and SATA is the connector on one end of the cable. If you have a free SATA port you can get a SATA > eSATA cable

Nope, it doesn't have internal sata  https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getdocument.aspx?docname=a00073554enw I think I made the worst purchase ever in my life

I see that you have a x16 PCIe slot, is it occupied ?

If not, you could use a PCIe to eSATA or SAS in the future.

Edited July 30, 20205 yr by ChatNoir

3 minutes ago, ChatNoir said:

I see that you have a x16 PCIe slot, is it occupied ?

If not, you could use a PCIe to eSATA or SAS in the future.

Yes, this PCIe right now it's empty, but as I don't have internal m.2 port my initial idea was to buy a PCIe adapter to add an m.2 ssd. So now, I need to choose between add the PCIe for more storage or to add the cache

7 minutes ago, Jandrop said:

Yes, this PCIe right now it's empty, but as I don't have internal m.2 port my initial idea was to buy a PCIe adapter to add an m.2 ssd. So now, I need to choose between add the PCIe for more storage or to add the cache

If you use it for a SAS HBA controller you can add a SATA SSD to the external drive cage with almost no speed penalties, assuming you get a decent SAS card.

After thinking about that, I will go for the SAS box then I have just a question, I think the max length of SATA is 1M from the disks to the HBA PCIe card in my Gen10 Plus, is that true? and I can remove this limitation by buying the Intel RES2SV240. I'm wrong?

48 minutes ago, Jandrop said:

I think the max length of SATA is 1M from the disks to the HBA PCIe card in my Gen10 Plus, is that true?

Correct.

 

48 minutes ago, Jandrop said:

and I can remove this limitation by buying the Intel RES2SV240. I'm wrong?

You're correct, with a SAS expander the cable from the HBA to the expander can be up to 10m long, though you should use one as small as possible, then from the expander to the SATA devices up to 1m.

1 hour ago, johnnie.black said:

Correct.

 

You're correct, with a SAS expander the cable from the HBA to the expander can be up to 10m long, though you should use one as small as possible, then from the expander to the SATA devices up to 1m.

Good to know, now my main concern is which card to buy, I've seen this card in eBay https://www.ebay.es/itm/LSI-9200-8e-6Gbps-8-lane-external-SAS-HBA-IT-Mode-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID-NoROM/132445000396 and says it will work with unRAID, but I can't see this card in the compatibility list. This card would be nice for me because have the external ports to connect the cable.

That one will work.

2 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

That one will work.

Thanks for the help, then I will go for it!