4TB Western Digital My Book 1230 USB hard drive not working on 10.2

[Freddie Cash]

On Aug 3, 2015 8:36 AM, "Paul Mather" <freebsd-lists at gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
wrote:
>
> On Aug 3, 2015, at 11:09 AM, Alban Hertroys <haramrae at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 3 August 2015 at 15:01, Paul Mather <freebsd-lists at gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
wrote:
> >> On Aug 2, 2015, at 9:34 PM, Adam McDougall <mcdouga9 at egr.msu.edu>
wrote:
> >>
> >>> On 08/02/2015 21:22, Paul Mather wrote:
> >>>> I have a 4TB external USB drive (Western Digital My Book 1230) that
I am trying to use under FreeBSD/amd64 10.2 (10.2-PRERELEASE #0 r286052:
Wed Jul 29 20:59:39 EDT 2015).  This system has a MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX)
motherboard.
> >>>>
> >>>> The drive probes unreliably when plugged in to a USB 3 port.  It
reliably probes when plugged into a USB 2 port.  However, it works in
neither cases.  Attempting to dd from the drive results in a "dd: /dev/da0:
Invalid argument".
> >
> > FYI: I had been experiencing the same with a 2 TB WD MyBook on OS X
> > (Mavericks). The drive was being used for Time Machine backups, but it
> > would at irregular intervals it would just 'disconnect' itself. My
> > guess is that there's a firmware problem in the USB3 chip in those
> > drives.
> >
> > After trying to get the issue fixed for almost half a year I returned
> > it and replaced it by a Seagate, which has been working flawlessly
> > ever since.
> >
> > I'm just saying, perhaps the problem isn't with FreeBSD but with the
drive.
>
>
> I'd love just to get to the "randomly disconnects" stage under FreeBSD at
this point. :-)
>
> Up to now, I have been unable to read ANY data off the drive under
FreeBSD, either via USB 2 or USB 3. :-(
>
> However, you have given me something to think about: does anyone know of
a 4 TB USB 2 or 3 drive that will work reliably under FreeBSD 10-STABLE
right now?

2 TB Toshiba drive in a NexStar 6G enclosure, and a 3 TB WD Black drives in
a NexStar 3 enclosures are working great on FreeBSD 9.3 (home), 8.1 (work)
and 10.0 (work). USB 2.x and 3.0. I use them as ZFS backups drives.

I've never liked the all-in-one external drives. I prefer separate
enclosures and drives. That way, the drives can be replaced or upgraded as
needed.