USB Drive Reliability

[matti k]

On Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:36:30 -0700
"Jason C. Wells" <jcw at highperformance.net> wrote:

> Wojciech Puchar wrote:
> 
> >> I am running FreeBSD 6.3.  I have found that attaching and
> >> detaching USB drives to my box is unreliable. Is this the
> >> experience of other users?
> 
> > something more precise please?
> 
> I realize that this is primarily a tech support forum. I wasn't
> asking for a solution to the problem.  I was asking for other peoples 
> experiences. If the USB support in FreeBSD was spotty according to
> other people, as has been reported, then I plan to not even try to
> work on it more until I install 7.1.
> 
> Just for the record:
> 
> - crashes the system on attachment
> - crashes the system on detachment
> - the system hangs on attachment but resumes responding if you pull
> the drive
> - installing the drive results in the little blue light coming on
> with dmesg reporting attachment, but attempts to mount fail with
> "device not configured" or somesuch
> - dataloss on the device that chkdisk in DOS couldn't save
> 
> Basically, every possible bad behavior that you could ask from a USB 
> connected drive has happened to me over time as I keep coming back
> and trying USB drives.  That's OK.  I'm not upset.  I'm not
> complaining.  I just want to know what to expect from USB drives in
> FreeBSD.

That sounds familiar, but I guess most USB storage devices are very
similar, so maybe start looking at the USB controller. I know in my
case, installing a PCI USB card with _NEC_ chipset solved all my
problems. Thought it worth mentioning ...

Cheers,
Matti