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[redtomato]

Hi,

I use an external storage enclosure (IcyBOX) connected to the MiraBox with an USB-3 cable.
Everything works like a charm... for a few hours. Then I'm getting I/O errors.
Unmounting/remounting doesn't fix the issue. I have to reboot the MiraBox and everything works again.
The phenomenon seems to be related to traffic. When there is light I/O, I don't get the problem. But as soon as there is heavy traffic on the disks, I'm getting this error.
Nothing of interest in the logs, except the applications complaining they can't read or write the filesystem.

I've tried the following.
Started "badblock" on 4 unmounted devices attached to the IcyBOX with USB-3.
It was running with error for 2 hours approximately, until suddenly badblock returned badblock. Every block was bad on all devices at the same time.
Only a reboot could fix the problem.

It looks like the USB-3 resets after a while, and Linux can't recever the loss of connection.
Anybody experienced the same issue ?

[CQ]

Hello,

I had the same issue that you're describing. In my case, i've found that the HDD was consuming more than 900mW that Mirabox sends thru USB port. So.. the disk was working fine for a few minutes, and after a few minutes idle, it just disappeared.

I solved my problem using a cable that is able to plug to both usb ports (one for power+data, and second just for power) and on other side to HDD. And.. i never had problem again.

Cable example:
USB 2.0: http://www.dx.com/p/usb-to-usb-mini-usb-data-connection-cable-for-hdd-enclosure-black-307406
USB 3.0: http://www.dx.com/p/usb-3-0-mate-to-micro-b-micro-usb-3-0-w-usb-charging-connection-cable-black-60cm-15cm-172255

Hope it helps you.

Regards,
CQ

[redtomato]

Hi,

That's very interesting. Thanks for the advice.
However, the ICYBox has its own power supply.
I switched to a USB-2 cable instead of the USB-3, and the problem remains.
Something odd is that when I had one disk in the bay, the problem occurred only once every 1 or 2 days, randomly, but now that I added 3 mors disks in the bay, it happens all the time... like every other jour.
I'm afraid there is a problem somewhere either in the Linux kernel, or on the Mirabox, or in the ICYBox. I'll continue the investigation.

[redtomato]

I think it might be the USB  auto suspend which isn't supported by the storage BOX, this was confirmed by the constructor of IcyBox but I hadn't time to test yet.
They support only Microsoft Windows, though. But they said they are pretty sure it's that.

[redtomato]

You can read this in kernel documentation : https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/usb/power-management.txt

The USB specification states that all USB devices must support power
management.  Nevertheless, the sad fact is that many devices do not
support it very well.  You can suspend them all right, but when you
try to resume them they disconnect themselves from the USB bus or
they stop working entirely.  This seems to be especially prevalent
among printers and scanners, but plenty of other types of device have
the same deficiency.

[redtomato]

For those who are interested.
I've fixed my issue by disabling power management and changeing two kernel options (sysfs).
turns out the ICYBox doesn't support USB power management properly after all.