Re: Reformatting little USB-harddisks

[Swift Griggs]

On Tue, 8 Mar 2016, Andrew Cagney wrote:
One got ya!  They can be slow to come online and may not be ready if 
you're trying to use or mount it during boot.


This is especially slow for some reason on WD drives with SES. I have a 
2TB WD USB3 drive for backups that has this issue. It's fine otherwise. 
NetBSD used to be a bit flaky with the SES operations (a long time ago) 
but it's great these days. My only wish was that it ran at USB3 speeds, 
but most USB3 drives can't exceed the USB2 spec (or not except for 
spikes). So, it's not a big deal to me.


-Swift

Re: Reformatting little USB-harddisks

[Andrew Cagney]

On 8 March 2016 at 11:13, herbert langhans  wrote:
> Hi List,
> you sure know these little external USB-harddisks, often used for laptops
> or basic backups. Like WD-Passport and Seagate Expansion and whatever
> they name them.
>
> They come FAT formatted, right? Has anyone of you tried to
> reformat them for NetBSD? I guess its not a big thing, but I wonder if I
> can buy any brand (need it for portable server backup and need GID/UID) or
> there are some models what make trouble with formatting, partitioning or
> mounting.

One got ya!  They can be slow to come online and may not be ready if
you're trying to use or mount it during boot.

> I had some trouble with USB-Sticks. Thats another story, but close
> enough the be alert just buying any plug n play solution what may not
> work later.
>
> Any experience?
> Thanks!
> herb langhans
>

Re: Reformatting little USB-harddisks

[herbert langhans]

Most of these that I've used work just fine. You end up mounting them
as /dev/sdXe and use mount_msdos. /dev/sdXe is just a made up
disklabel that the machine makes to temporarily deal with it.

Some come formatted with ExFAT now which is not compatible with
NetBSD, and might never be as far as I know.

You can wipe them and use fdisk and disklabel to turn them into "real"
NetBSD disks without any problem. There might be a few that cause
issues but most work in my experience.
Andy

Ok, thats fairly easy - fdisk and disklabel. Will be a 1T harddisk. Just
for keeping backups in a separate location.

Not the fastest solution I guess. Rsync will take care of it - and I still 
have the slower USB2 on my server...

Cheers
herb langhans

Re: Reformatting little USB-harddisks

[herbert langhans]

From: Travis Paul  [160308 18:36]

> They come FAT formatted, right? Has anyone of you tried to
> reformat them for NetBSD? I guess its not a big thing, but I wonder if I
> can buy any brand (need it for portable server backup and need GID/UID) 
or 
> there are some models what make trouble with formatting, partitioning or 
> mounting.
> 


I have used several brands, WD, Seagate, Kingston and they have all worked 
with NetBSD.
I've even used a Kingston SATA to USB converter with an SanDisk SSD and had 
no issues.

Best of luck,
Travis

Thats great, thanks for the hint, Travis. I will fetch a WD or Seagate.
Will miss my tape streamer though, it has style...
   
Cheers
herb langhans
 

Re: Reformatting little USB-harddisks

[Greg Troxel]

Andy Ruhl  writes:

> On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 9:13 AM, herbert langhans  wrote:
>> Hi List,
>> you sure know these little external USB-harddisks, often used for laptops
>> or basic backups. Like WD-Passport and Seagate Expansion and whatever
>> they name them.
>>
>> They come FAT formatted, right? Has anyone of you tried to
>> reformat them for NetBSD? I guess its not a big thing, but I wonder if I
>> can buy any brand (need it for portable server backup and need GID/UID) or
>> there are some models what make trouble with formatting, partitioning or
>> mounting.
>>
>> I had some trouble with USB-Sticks. Thats another story, but close
>> enough the be alert just buying any plug n play solution what may not
>> work later.
>>
>
> Most of these that I've used work just fine. You end up mounting them
> as /dev/sdXe and use mount_msdos. /dev/sdXe is just a made up
> disklabel that the machine makes to temporarily deal with it.
>
> Some come formatted with ExFAT now which is not compatible with
> NetBSD, and might never be as far as I know.
>
> You can wipe them and use fdisk and disklabel to turn them into "real"
> NetBSD disks without any problem. There might be a few that cause
> issues but most work in my experience.

Agreed.

The only issue is disks with 4K sectors may need newer NetBSD (7) to
work right.   But 512-byte sectors should have no issues.

I have seen a 3T disk (WD elements) with 4K sectors that I can't get
NetBSD 7 to recognize.  But I think that's an odd disk, not a general
issue.  And it's not about the filesystem; it's about the disk itself.


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Re: Reformatting little USB-harddisks

[Andy Ruhl]

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 9:13 AM, herbert langhans  wrote:
> Hi List,
> you sure know these little external USB-harddisks, often used for laptops
> or basic backups. Like WD-Passport and Seagate Expansion and whatever
> they name them.
>
> They come FAT formatted, right? Has anyone of you tried to
> reformat them for NetBSD? I guess its not a big thing, but I wonder if I
> can buy any brand (need it for portable server backup and need GID/UID) or
> there are some models what make trouble with formatting, partitioning or
> mounting.
>
> I had some trouble with USB-Sticks. Thats another story, but close
> enough the be alert just buying any plug n play solution what may not
> work later.
>

Most of these that I've used work just fine. You end up mounting them
as /dev/sdXe and use mount_msdos. /dev/sdXe is just a made up
disklabel that the machine makes to temporarily deal with it.

Some come formatted with ExFAT now which is not compatible with
NetBSD, and might never be as far as I know.

You can wipe them and use fdisk and disklabel to turn them into "real"
NetBSD disks without any problem. There might be a few that cause
issues but most work in my experience.

Andy

Reformatting little USB-harddisks

[herbert langhans]

Hi List,
you sure know these little external USB-harddisks, often used for laptops
or basic backups. Like WD-Passport and Seagate Expansion and whatever
they name them.

They come FAT formatted, right? Has anyone of you tried to
reformat them for NetBSD? I guess its not a big thing, but I wonder if I
can buy any brand (need it for portable server backup and need GID/UID) or 
there are some models what make trouble with formatting, partitioning or 
mounting.

I had some trouble with USB-Sticks. Thats another story, but close
enough the be alert just buying any plug n play solution what may not
work later.

Any experience?
Thanks!
herb langhans