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The Least Reliable USB 3.0 SATA Disk Enclosure I've Encountered With Linux

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  • The Least Reliable USB 3.0 SATA Disk Enclosure I've Encountered With Linux

    Phoronix: The Least Reliable USB 3.0 SATA Disk Enclosure I've Encountered With Linux

    While in 2016 one wouldn't think that a USB disk enclosure would be much of an issue under Linux when they have generally worked well going back more than one decade, but this week I encountered a popular 2.5-inch SSD enclosure from Amazon that doesn't seem to work well...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    My suspicion is in the firmware that controls the device and it sounds to me there's either bugs or that it seems to only work with Windows. Has this enclosure been tested on a Windows system as well?

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    • #3
      Sabrent is basically sells the cheapest stuff from China, throw it in a box, and slap their logo on it. They perform no engineering validation. It's basically throwing crap on a wall and seeing what sticks.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by DeepDayze View Post
        My suspicion is in the firmware that controls the device and it sounds to me there's either bugs or that it seems to only work with Windows. Has this enclosure been tested on a Windows system as well?
        I don't keep any Windows installations around aside from when I am actively running some big comparison/test.
        Michael Larabel
        https://www.michaellarabel.com/

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        • #5
          I see some Windows reviewers that say it didn't work for them either. One person believes the problem is that the board some times (probably dependent on the drive dimensions) get in contact with the casing, insulating it with tape fixed it for him.

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          • #6
            I had a fairly old USB 3.0 <-> SATA3 connector in a 2.5 enclosure. It looks decent for a "Cheapest Chinese Product" and it uses a Jmicron controller (I thought Marvell could be worse, based on their inferior PCI-E <-> SATA3 performance). It seems to work perfectly with Windows (with the on-box generic driver) but very unreliable with Linux (it seems to work properly for a few minutes but then it switches to data shredder mode) using the generic UAS driver (the SCSI Direct mode for USB Mass Storage). At one day, it stopped working completely under Linux.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by janos666 View Post
              I had a fairly old USB 3.0 <-> SATA3 connector in a 2.5 enclosure. It looks decent for a "Cheapest Chinese Product" and it uses a Jmicron controller (I thought Marvell could be worse, based on their inferior PCI-E <-> SATA3 performance). It seems to work perfectly with Windows (with the on-box generic driver) but very unreliable with Linux (it seems to work properly for a few minutes but then it switches to data shredder mode) using the generic UAS driver (the SCSI Direct mode for USB Mass Storage). At one day, it stopped working completely under Linux.
              JMicron's chips aren't all that hot under Linux, and their SD card controller common in many laptops seems to be hit and miss.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by LoveRPi View Post
                Sabrent is basically sells the cheapest stuff from China, throw it in a box, and slap their logo on it. They perform no engineering validation. It's basically throwing crap on a wall and seeing what sticks.
                There is a long list of "brands" doing the same.

                I have quite a few drives here that work for a bit, then after a minute or so they stop responding on any OS, or drives that simply error out hard on USB 3.0 and work fine with usb 2.0 (on 3 different USB 3.0 controllers on Linux), while working 100% fine on Windows. (disks are mine and I know they work fine)

                And don't get me started with USB 3.0 hubs. I've had to fucking flash a new firmware (found around teh internets) in a large-ish batch of friggin usb 3.0 hubs to enable usb 3.0 functionality on Windows (while on linux still random errors, and not working).

                It's getting ridicolous imho.

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                • #9
                  unapproved post above...

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                  • #10
                    Despite it may be a crappy product, I have too many issues with USB on my laptop and very specially with USB 3.0. Due that I got tired of the bugs and finally got able to do the main task (HDD backup), I forgot to investigate why it happens and how to resolve it.

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