Cannot use any SSD drive connected with USB-A, but works well on USB-C port

TrueNAS General
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1

Cannot use drive connected with USB-A.

Hi. I a running Truenas Scale on a Terramaster F6-424 Max device. Everything is set up and running properly.

When I try to add a SSD, via a SSD enclosure, everything works well with the USB-C port of the device. When I try to add the same SSD (+enclosure) that works well on USB-C to the USB-A port, I cannot access the SSD. I have tried with multiple cables, SSD drives and enclosure, resulting the the same outcome with USB-A.

I get this error message:
[EFAULT] [Errno 5] Input/output error

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/job.py”, line 488, in run
await self.future
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/job.py”, line 533, in __run_body
rv = await self.method(*args)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema/processor.py”, line 179, in nf
return await func(*args, **kwargs)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema/processor.py”, line 49, in nf
res = await f(*args, **kwargs)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/boot.py”, line 160, in replace
await self.middleware.call(‘boot.format’, dev, format_opts)
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py”, line 1626, in call
return await self._call(
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py”, line 1457, in call
return await methodobj(*prepared_call.args)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema/processor.py”, line 179, in nf
return await func(*args, **kwargs)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/boot/format.py", line 24, in format
raise CallError(job.error)
middlewared.service_exception.CallError: [EFAULT] [Errno 5] Input/output error

2

Just guessing here, but I suspect the F6-424 provides different power delivery specs to the USB-A port than the USB-C port.

USB-C might support the Power Delivery standard, where USB-A usually won’t, for example.

Is your enclosure powered off the USB bus, or does it have its own power supply? If it’s still misbehaving on USB-A with its own power supply, that’s a different issue and I couldn’t begin to guess. :frowning:

TrueNAS doesn’t support using USB storage, which is why I suspect you’re getting a rather generic error. It’s not set up to report on USB power errors.

3

I have tried with a different enclosure, USB-A to SATA with its own power source. It ended up with the samme issue.

4

I’m sorry to hear that. Is there more than one USB-A port on the device? If there is, you might want to check with another one.

Another idea: Figure out how to get into the BIOS and see if there’s any kind of setting for power savings/automatic sleep/anything else on the USB ports. If the BIOS is sleeping the drive, that could cause errors.

The underlying Linux might be sleeping the drive somehow, but I’m not sure how to diagnose or fix that…