USB Drive Reliability

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:

> I have one system (7.0) which becomes extremely unstable if I have a USB 
> drive connected.  I usually get a system crash in 10 to 30 minutes after 
> mounting the USB drive.  It has never crashed without the USB drive attached, 
> and it has never gone for more than three days with it attached.  Usually the 
> failure is much sooner.  This was with 7.0-RELEASE.  I haven't checked since 
> I've moved to 7-STABLE.
>
> I have another system (identical software, different hardware) which is solid 
> as a rock with the identical USB drive attached.
>
> Unfortunately, the crashing system is a small form machine and there is no 
> way to put in a different USB controller.  The USB drive was for backups, 
> which I now do over the network to the machine that is working just fine.

That might indicate a cable problem, even just being too long.  A 
line-powered hub added between a problematic USB card reader and 
computer fixed an unreliable situation here.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA