[smartmontools-support] Mediasonic 8 Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure connected via USB 3.0

[Graham Fleming]

Hi there,

I have a Mediasonic ProBox H82-SU3S2 8 Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure.

"smartctl -a /dev/sd[a-h]" returns full stats of all drives when connected via eSATA using port multiplier. However, when connecting via USB 3.0, the same command does not work.

I get the error: "Smartctl open device: /dev/sdd [USB JMicron] failed: No device connected".

So, I try various combinations of the "-d usbjmicron,X" parameters but still cannot get any smart status of the hard disks.

Any one have any luck with this unit on USB 3.0? Anything I can do to test/help get it working with smartmontools?

To those wondering why I don't just use eSATA, I have a new computer whose on-board eSATA port does not support port multiplier.

Thanks a lot!

Graham

[Christian Franke]

Post by Graham Fleming
Hi there,
I have a Mediasonic ProBox H82-SU3S2 8 Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure.
"smartctl -a /dev/sd[a-h]" returns full stats of all drives when connected via eSATA using port multiplier. However, when connecting via USB 3.0, the same command does not work.
I get the error: "Smartctl open device: /dev/sdd [USB JMicron] failed: No device connected".
So, I try various combinations of the "-d usbjmicron,X" parameters but still cannot get any smart status of the hard disks.
Any one have any luck with this unit on USB 3.0? Anything I can do to test/help get it working with smartmontools?

The JMicron specific ATA pass-through uses the DEV bit (Parallel ATA
Master/Slave selection) from ATA device/head register to select the
device. Therefore only 2 devices are supported. I'm not aware of any
protocol extension that works with port multipliers. There probably is
none because this is not needed for regular I/O.

Thanks,
Christian

[Graham Fleming]

Hi Christian,

Thanks for the detailed reply and great info. Good call on the age of the ticket!

So yes, just verified "smartctl -d usbjimcron,N ... /dev/sdX" returns errors such as:

Read Device Identity failed: scsi error unsupported field in scsi command
A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.

I try adding "-T permissive" (or even verypermissive) and get this:

Read Device Identity failed: scsi error unsupported field in scsi command
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: ???
Serial Number: ?
Firmware Version: ?????
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: Unknown(0x1ac0) (unknown minor revision code: 0x045a)
Local Time is: Mon Jul 14 20:08:44 2014 PDT
SMART support is: Ambiguous - ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE words 82-83 don't show if SMART supported.
SMART support is: Ambiguous - ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE words 85-87 don't show if SMART is enabled.
A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.

And yes, not including the beginning lines of output but I'm running this on Arch Linux with kernel 3.15.5 and smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841.

And I just tried it with "-d sat". Can't believe it but it works! All 8 disks are showing up. Thank you thank you thank you! I guess the "[USB JMicron]" in the initial error output had me focusing on using the usbjmicron switches.

Thanks again!

Graham

Thanks a lot for the reply. I'll admit I don't fully understand what
you are saying, but the staement that it only works with 2 devices
seems contradictory to the info on the supported devices page where
the Mediasonic Pro Box 4 Bay Enclosure is listed as supported. And the
associated ticket (http://www.smartmontools.org/ticket/95) appears to
show that it does work with all 4 drives.

The ATA pass-through of JMicron USB bridges supports only 2 ports (-d usbjmicron,0 and ,1) regardless of a port multiplier behind(!) the USB bridge (see also comment #1 of the ticket).
If you actually have tested "smartctl -d usbjmicron,N ... /dev/sdX" for N=0,1 and /dev/sdX="all disks from this box", then JMicron's ATA pass-through does (no longer) work with this box.
(BTW: You didn't include smartctl's first output line, so I assume by default that you are using a recent smartctl version under Linux)

Does seeing how the 4-bay works make any sense with how the 8-bay
might work?

The ticket is 4+ years old and the hard/firmware of recent models may have changed considerably without notice. The ticket reporter's test result ("usbjmicron,0 ... appeared to successfully give the info for the first disk") is very different from your test results.
There is a chance that JMicron now supports SAT. Try "-d sat" option with some /dev/sdX from the box.
Please also report the USB ID and bcdDevice value of the box ("lsusb ...").
Thanks,
Christian

[Christian Franke]

Post by Graham Fleming
Hi Christian,
Thanks for the detailed reply and great info. Good call on the age of the ticket!

You're welcome.

Post by Graham Fleming
And I just tried it with "-d sat". Can't believe it but it works! All 8 disks are showing up. Thank you thank you thank you! I guess the "[USB JMicron]" in the initial error output had me focusing on using the usbjmicron switches.

This is another report that suggests that newer JMicron firmware
releases support SAT and do not provide backward compatibility.

Please provide the lsusb output for this device (USB ID and bcdDevice
info). If bcdDevice differs from the value used by old firmware (0x100 =
1.00), the '-d sat' could be automatically set on Linux.

Thanks,
Christian

[Graham Fleming]

Here is the lsusb output for the device:

Device 002: ID 152d:0539 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JMS539 SuperSpeed SATA II 3.0G Bridge

Post by Christian Franke

Post by Graham Fleming
Hi Christian,
Thanks for the detailed reply and great info. Good call on the age of the ticket!

You're welcome.

Post by Graham Fleming
And I just tried it with "-d sat". Can't believe it but it works! All 8 disks are showing up. Thank you thank you thank you! I guess the "[USB JMicron]" in the initial error output had me focusing on using the usbjmicron switches.

This is another report that suggests that newer JMicron firmware releases support SAT and do not provide backward compatibility.
Please provide the lsusb output for this device (USB ID and bcdDevice info). If bcdDevice differs from the value used by old firmware (0x100 = 1.00), the '-d sat' could be automatically set on Linux.
Thanks,
Christian

[Christian Franke]

Post by Graham Fleming
Device 002: ID 152d:0539 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JMS539 SuperSpeed SATA II 3.0G Bridge

The "bcdDevice" value important to distinguish old (-d jmicron) and new
(-d sat) JM539 firmware.

Try:

lsusb -d 152d:0539 -v | grep -2 bcdDevice

Thanks,
Christian

[Graham Fleming]

idVendor 0x152d JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp.
idProduct 0x0539 JMS539 SuperSpeed SATA II 3.0G Bridge
bcdDevice 28.12
iManufacturer 10 JMicron
iProduct 11 USB to ATA/ATAPI Bridge

Post by Graham Fleming
Device 002: ID 152d:0539 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JMS539 SuperSpeed SATA II 3.0G Bridge

The "bcdDevice" value important to distinguish old (-d jmicron) and new (-d sat) JM539 firmware.
lsusb -d 152d:0539 -v | grep -2 bcdDevice
Thanks,
Christian

[Christian Franke]

Post by Graham Fleming
idVendor 0x152d JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp.
idProduct 0x0539 JMS539 SuperSpeed SATA II 3.0G Bridge
bcdDevice 28.12

Added to drivedb.h in r3950, r3951. Please run
/usr/sbin/update-smart-drivedb. Should work without "-d sat" then.

Thanks,
Christian

[Graham Fleming]

Amazing! Works like a charm. Thanks a lot.

Post by Graham Fleming
idVendor 0x152d JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp.
idProduct 0x0539 JMS539 SuperSpeed SATA II 3.0G Bridge
bcdDevice 28.12

Added to drivedb.h in r3950, r3951. Please run /usr/sbin/update-smart-drivedb. Should work without "-d sat" then.
Thanks,
Christian

[Graham Fleming]

So, now that my smartd.conf file is working again (I didn't ever re-write it for the -d sat command), I'm seeing some errors come up when I restart smartd.

Here's an example of one of the drives in the 8-bay array (all drives report same error):
smartd[12997]: Device: /dev/sdi [SAT], ST1000NM0011, S/N:Z1N0APEA, WWN:5-000c50-03ec3daa1, FW:PA07, 1.00 TB
smartd[12997]: Device: /dev/sdi [SAT], found in smartd database: Seagate Constellation ES (SATA 6Gb/s)
smartd[12997]: Device: /dev/sdi [SAT], not capable of SMART Health Status check
smartd[12997]: Device: /dev/sdi [SAT], is SMART capable. Adding to "monitor" list.
smartd[12997]: Device: /dev/sdj [SAT], opened

Not sure exactly what SMART Health Status check is, but when I run smartctl -a on that drive, everything seems pretty good:

smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.15.5-1-ARCH] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

Jul 16 09:35:27 Mediacentre sudo[13352]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Seagate Constellation ES (SATA 6Gb/s)
Device Model: ST1000NM0011
Serial Number: Z1N0APEA
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 03ec3daa1
Add. Product Id: DELL(tm)
Firmware Version: PA07
User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: 7200 rpm
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Wed Jul 16 09:35:27 2014 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART STATUS RETURN: incomplete response, ATA output registers missing
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Warning: This result is based on an Attribute check.

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 609) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
SCT capabilities: (0x10bd) SCT Status supported.
SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 080 063 044 Pre-fail Always - 112875577
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 095 093 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 20
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 076 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 42348384
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 081 081 000 Old_age Always - 16909
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 18
184 End-to-End_Error 0x0032 100 100 099 Old_age Always - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 060 049 045 Old_age Always - 40 (Min/Max 37/49)
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 13
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 21
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 040 051 000 Old_age Always - 40 (0 18 0 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 116 099 000 Old_age Always - 112875577
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 161048388714742
241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 349799315
242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 1194316266

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 15625 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Post by Graham Fleming
idVendor 0x152d JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp.
idProduct 0x0539 JMS539 SuperSpeed SATA II 3.0G Bridge
bcdDevice 28.12

Added to drivedb.h in r3950, r3951. Please run /usr/sbin/update-smart-drivedb. Should work without "-d sat" then.
Thanks,
Christian