Serial # error adding USB drive to new pool (edit)

TrueNAS General
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I’ve had Truenas running nicely in a VM on Proxmox for several days. The current pool is RaidZ1 using nvme disks I Now I want to add USB storage to a new pool, but I’m getting a Topology error: “Disks have duplicate serial numbers: None (sdb, sdf)”

The USB disk is listed as unassigned when I try to create the new pool, and has the correct info.

In Proxmox I can see bus and ID info using lsusb, but there’s nothing under /dev/disk. So I don’t have any path info to use with qm set. I’ve tried adding storage with a couple different USB drives but get the same serial # error.

Am I missing something obvious?

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That is pretty much expected when adding USB drives to TrueNAS. This’ll be a harsh solution, but the fix is “don’t do it”.

Edited; as I saw @Arwen typing & remembered that there is a well written resource that explains my advice in detail:

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Yes. USB drives are not recommended for use as TrueNAS data pool devices.

That said, incorrect serial numbers is a problem with USB disks. Sometimes an USB to SATA adapter will do the right thing, and give a unique serial number. Seems to depend on the vendor. Even if you get the serial number issue resolved, USB disks can be problematic and have been known to cause data loss.

On the useful side, you can see about passing through the USB controller PCIe device, (and unfortunately all it’s devices), to your TrueNAS VM.

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Thanks for the advice, but it’s a bit disappointing to not be able to even create a pool with usb drives. Especially since the UI let’s you select them. I also don’t understand why Scale can’t make use of the serial # that it is able to display under Disks. Seems a bit buggy if not incomplete. One other complaint is I was hoping to at least import a usb disk, but the “import disk” option got removed.

Otherwise Truenas is working great.

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Dont do it!

I tried it and had constant problems with it.

My array fell apart almost every day.

USB is simply not reliabla/stable connection enough for ZFS needs.

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Yep, that seems to be the consensus. It would be nice if I could just get it set up though. Why Truenas let’s you go through the motions for USB devices and then fails on the serial #, which it already knows!, I have no idea.

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Most of the times, its not a truenas issue, but rather of the usb enclosures, which do not pass through the real serial number but rather one generic one for all attached disks. Truenas can only work with what it gets provided…