* [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
@ 2025-01-30 16:55 gevisz
2025-01-30 17:03 ` [gentoo-user] " gevisz
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: gevisz @ 2025-01-30 16:55 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
About half a year ago my old 1.5TB SATA Green WD HDD
tapped me on the shoulder and said: "Hi, very soon you won't
be able to read any data from me."
As I have not made my backups regularly, I took this warning
seriously and decided to finally realize my old idea of moving
from ext4 to ZFS.
So, I have bought a 500GB SATA Green WD HDD.
Based on its price, I suspected it was refurbished,
but I didn't have much choice since the Green WD HDDs
were apparently no longer in production, and
the 2TB Gold WD HDD was incomparably more expensive.
After installing ZFS on it, it turned out that everything works well.
So, I decided to buy two other WD HDD of the same model,
to set one of them as a ZFS mirror and leave the third WD HDD
for the time when one of its twin brothers fails.
This time the seller warned me that these WD HDDs
are refurbished but assured me that they were refurbished
by WD itself. Taking into account that the previous such HDD
behaved quite well, I decided to proceed with my purchase.
After setting up one of them as a ZFS mirror, I immediately
got the problem that if I boot my system with additional HDD
connected to my computer, one of these ZFS mirror disks
is not detected and the corresponding zpool appears to be degraded.
I have realized that it was my fault to use /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc
notations when setting up the ZFS mirror because with more disks
at the boot time these notations may change.
I should have used /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000* notations instead!
Unfortunately, I have not found the way to change these notations
other than deleting the whole zpool and re-creating it anew with
the notations /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000*, which took quite
a lot of time.
Presumably, the problem with detecting my ZFS mirror HDDs
should have disappeared after that because now the disks were
referred to by their ids but unfortunately it was not the case.
When I boot my computer with an additional external HDD
attached to the computer via USB, one of my ZFS mirror HDDs
is not detected by the system and the corresponding zpool again
appears to be degraded until I restart my computer in the usual
setup, that is, without any additional HDD attached to it.
I have looked into my /dev/disk/by-id/ directory and found out
that this happens because one of these ZFS mirror HDDs
does not appear in this directory at all!
The situation remained the same even after swapping the
undetected 500GB WD HDD with the one.
So, I wonder if it is a fault of
1) refurbished WD HDDs
2) my almost 20 years old Ultra-Durable Gigabyte motherboard
3) the Linux system itself.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* [gentoo-user] Re: Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
2025-01-30 16:55 [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD gevisz
@ 2025-01-30 17:03 ` gevisz
2025-01-30 21:08 ` [gentoo-user] " Grant Taylor
2025-01-31 11:24 ` Michael
2 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: gevisz @ 2025-01-30 17:03 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
The small correction: the penultimate sentence
of my previous email should read:
"The situation remained the same even after swapping the
undetected 500GB WD HDD with the spare one."
чт, 30 янв. 2025 г. в 18:55, gevisz <gevisz@gmail.com>:
>
> About half a year ago my old 1.5TB SATA Green WD HDD
> tapped me on the shoulder and said: "Hi, very soon you won't
> be able to read any data from me."
>
> As I have not made my backups regularly, I took this warning
> seriously and decided to finally realize my old idea of moving
> from ext4 to ZFS.
>
> So, I have bought a 500GB SATA Green WD HDD.
> Based on its price, I suspected it was refurbished,
> but I didn't have much choice since the Green WD HDDs
> were apparently no longer in production, and
> the 2TB Gold WD HDD was incomparably more expensive.
>
> After installing ZFS on it, it turned out that everything works well.
> So, I decided to buy two other WD HDD of the same model,
> to set one of them as a ZFS mirror and leave the third WD HDD
> for the time when one of its twin brothers fails.
>
> This time the seller warned me that these WD HDDs
> are refurbished but assured me that they were refurbished
> by WD itself. Taking into account that the previous such HDD
> behaved quite well, I decided to proceed with my purchase.
>
> After setting up one of them as a ZFS mirror, I immediately
> got the problem that if I boot my system with additional HDD
> connected to my computer, one of these ZFS mirror disks
> is not detected and the corresponding zpool appears to be degraded.
>
> I have realized that it was my fault to use /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc
> notations when setting up the ZFS mirror because with more disks
> at the boot time these notations may change.
>
> I should have used /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000* notations instead!
>
> Unfortunately, I have not found the way to change these notations
> other than deleting the whole zpool and re-creating it anew with
> the notations /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000*, which took quite
> a lot of time.
>
> Presumably, the problem with detecting my ZFS mirror HDDs
> should have disappeared after that because now the disks were
> referred to by their ids but unfortunately it was not the case.
>
> When I boot my computer with an additional external HDD
> attached to the computer via USB, one of my ZFS mirror HDDs
> is not detected by the system and the corresponding zpool again
> appears to be degraded until I restart my computer in the usual
> setup, that is, without any additional HDD attached to it.
>
> I have looked into my /dev/disk/by-id/ directory and found out
> that this happens because one of these ZFS mirror HDDs
> does not appear in this directory at all!
>
> The situation remained the same even after swapping the
> undetected 500GB WD HDD with the spare one.
>
> So, I wonder if it is a fault of
> 1) refurbished WD HDDs
> 2) my almost 20 years old Ultra-Durable Gigabyte motherboard
> 3) the Linux system itself.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
2025-01-30 16:55 [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD gevisz
2025-01-30 17:03 ` [gentoo-user] " gevisz
@ 2025-01-30 21:08 ` Grant Taylor
2025-01-30 22:58 ` gevisz
2025-01-31 11:24 ` Michael
2 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: Grant Taylor @ 2025-01-30 21:08 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
On 1/30/25 10:55 AM, gevisz wrote:
> I should have used /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000* notations instead!
>
> Unfortunately, I have not found the way to change these notations
> other than deleting the whole zpool and re-creating it anew with
> the notations /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000*, which took quite
> a lot of time.
I got around this years ago on an Ubuntu system by doing an export
followed by a slightly special import:
zpool export tank
zpool import -d /dev/disk/by-id tank
You can find more details and specifics in an article that I wrote about
installing Ubuntu 16.04 on a ZFS root.
Link - Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) ZFS native root install
-
https://dotfiles.tnetconsulting.net/articles/2016/0327/ubuntu-zfs-native-root.html
--
Grant. . . .
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
2025-01-30 21:08 ` [gentoo-user] " Grant Taylor
@ 2025-01-30 22:58 ` gevisz
2025-01-31 0:13 ` Grant Taylor
0 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: gevisz @ 2025-01-30 22:58 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
Thank you for your reply. I will look into the link
but, as far as I understand, it does not answer
the question why one of my ZFS disks does not
appear in /dev/disk/by-id/ directory when I boot
my computer with additional disk connected to it.
чт, 30 янв. 2025 г. в 23:09, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@gentoo.tnetconsulting.net>:
>
> On 1/30/25 10:55 AM, gevisz wrote:
> > I should have used /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000* notations instead!
> >
> > Unfortunately, I have not found the way to change these notations
> > other than deleting the whole zpool and re-creating it anew with
> > the notations /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000*, which took quite
> > a lot of time.
>
> I got around this years ago on an Ubuntu system by doing an export
> followed by a slightly special import:
>
> zpool export tank
> zpool import -d /dev/disk/by-id tank
>
> You can find more details and specifics in an article that I wrote about
> installing Ubuntu 16.04 on a ZFS root.
>
> Link - Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) ZFS native root install
> -
> https://dotfiles.tnetconsulting.net/articles/2016/0327/ubuntu-zfs-native-root.html
>
>
>
> --
> Grant. . . .
>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
2025-01-30 22:58 ` gevisz
@ 2025-01-31 0:13 ` Grant Taylor
0 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: Grant Taylor @ 2025-01-31 0:13 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
On 1/30/25 16:58, gevisz wrote:
> Thank you for your reply.
You're welcome.
> I will look into the link but, as far as I understand,
Feel free to ask questions, either here or directly to me if you feel
it's not germane to Gentoo.
> it does not answer the question why one of my ZFS disks does not
> appear in /dev/disk/by-id/ directory when I boot my computer with
> additional disk connected to it.
I only commented on the part that I quoted.
Looking back at your original message, if the missing disk doesn't
appear in dmesg (assuming that dmesg hasn't wrapped) then the system
isn't seeing the drive for some reason. If the system isn't seeing the
drive at all, there won't be a sym-link in /dev/disk/by-id etc.
I can't speculate as to why the disk doesn't show up if the USB drive is
attached.
--
Grant. . . .
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
2025-01-30 16:55 [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD gevisz
2025-01-30 17:03 ` [gentoo-user] " gevisz
2025-01-30 21:08 ` [gentoo-user] " Grant Taylor
@ 2025-01-31 11:24 ` Michael
2025-02-01 0:13 ` gevisz
2 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: Michael @ 2025-01-31 11:24 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2705 bytes --]
On Thursday 30 January 2025 16:55:00 Greenwich Mean Time gevisz wrote:
[snip ...]
> After setting up one of them as a ZFS mirror, I immediately
> got the problem that if I boot my system with additional HDD
> connected to my computer, one of these ZFS mirror disks
> is not detected and the corresponding zpool appears to be degraded.
>
> I have realized that it was my fault to use /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc
> notations when setting up the ZFS mirror because with more disks
> at the boot time these notations may change.
>
> I should have used /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000* notations instead!
With ZFS you should probably have used the unique device ID obtained by
running:
lsblk -o name,wwn
My ZFS experience is cursory to know it if makes a material difference, but
according to the Gentoo wiki page this is what OpenZFS prefers:
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/ZFS#Preparing_disk
> Unfortunately, I have not found the way to change these notations
> other than deleting the whole zpool and re-creating it anew with
> the notations /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000*, which took quite
> a lot of time.
>
> Presumably, the problem with detecting my ZFS mirror HDDs
> should have disappeared after that because now the disks were
> referred to by their ids but unfortunately it was not the case.
>
> When I boot my computer with an additional external HDD
> attached to the computer via USB, one of my ZFS mirror HDDs
> is not detected by the system and the corresponding zpool again
> appears to be degraded until I restart my computer in the usual
> setup, that is, without any additional HDD attached to it.
>
> I have looked into my /dev/disk/by-id/ directory and found out
> that this happens because one of these ZFS mirror HDDs
> does not appear in this directory at all!
When USB drives are plugged in, or the system boots with a USB drive already
plugged in, they may not be detected in the same order against other connected
drives and their logical device name can change e.g. from /dev/sdb to /dev/
sdc.
However, this will not stop a HDD from being detected. Its logical name may
change, but the disk by-id and wwn will not.
> The situation remained the same even after swapping the
> undetected 500GB WD HDD with the one.
>
> So, I wonder if it is a fault of
> 1) refurbished WD HDDs
Run smartctl tests to see what they detect. Any error reported indicates a
hardware problem.
> 2) my almost 20 years old Ultra-Durable Gigabyte motherboard
Try a different SATA port and cable from what you've been using so far to
connect the second hard drive. Either may be faulty.
> 3) the Linux system itself.
Highly unlikely, but booting with a liveUSB will soon confirm this.
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
2025-01-31 11:24 ` Michael
@ 2025-02-01 0:13 ` gevisz
2025-02-16 16:50 ` Wols Lists
0 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: gevisz @ 2025-02-01 0:13 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
пт, 31 янв. 2025 г. в 13:26, Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com>:
>
> On Thursday 30 January 2025 16:55:00 Greenwich Mean Time gevisz wrote:
> [snip ...]
>
> > After setting up one of them as a ZFS mirror, I immediately
> > got the problem that if I boot my system with additional HDD
> > connected to my computer, one of these ZFS mirror disks
> > is not detected and the corresponding zpool appears to be degraded.
> >
> > I have realized that it was my fault to use /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc
> > notations when setting up the ZFS mirror because with more disks
> > at the boot time these notations may change.
> >
> > I should have used /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000* notations instead!
>
> With ZFS you should probably have used the unique device ID obtained by
> running:
>
> lsblk -o name,wwn
Currently, at least one of these ZFS disks does not report its wwn nor via
your command above, neither to the /dev/disk/by-id/ directory. However,
they both report itself to the /dev/disk/by-id/ directory as
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000*
That was the reason why I used the latter format when setting up my zpool.
However, when I boot with external USB HDD or another additional
SATA HDD, this ZFS HDD does not report himself to the directory
/dev/disk/by-id/ at all (and to the lsblk command as well), and so
ZFS does not find it.
> My ZFS experience is cursory to know it if makes a material difference, but
> according to the Gentoo wiki page this is what OpenZFS prefers:
>
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/ZFS#Preparing_disk
My system starts from a XFS partition on another HDD, so I did not
"prepared" these HDDs at all, leaving everything to ZFS itself
as it is recommended in the documentation. That is, I have not
partitioned them and have not formated them with any file system.
> > Unfortunately, I have not found the way to change these notations
> > other than deleting the whole zpool and re-creating it anew with
> > the notations /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000*, which took quite
> > a lot of time.
> >
> > Presumably, the problem with detecting my ZFS mirror HDDs
> > should have disappeared after that because now the disks were
> > referred to by their ids but unfortunately it was not the case.
> >
> > When I boot my computer with an additional external HDD
> > attached to the computer via USB, one of my ZFS mirror HDDs
> > is not detected by the system and the corresponding zpool again
> > appears to be degraded until I restart my computer in the usual
> > setup, that is, without any additional HDD attached to it.
> >
> > I have looked into my /dev/disk/by-id/ directory and found out
> > that this happens because one of these ZFS mirror HDDs
> > does not appear in this directory at all!
>
> When USB drives are plugged in, or the system boots with a USB drive already
> plugged in, they may not be detected in the same order against other connected
> drives and their logical device name can change e.g. from /dev/sdb to /dev/
> sdc.
>
> However, this will not stop a HDD from being detected. Its logical name may
> change, but the disk by-id and wwn will not.
The problem is that after booting with an additional HDD,
one of these ZFS HDDs does not report any of its disk id:
nor wwn neighter in the form ata-WDC_WD5000*.
> > The situation remained the same even after swapping the
> > undetected 500GB WD HDD with the one.
And now, this makes me think that the problem is indeed with the SATA port.
> > So, I wonder if it is a fault of
> > 1) refurbished WD HDDs
>
> Run smartctl tests to see what they detect. Any error reported indicates a
> hardware problem.
I have run all possible disk checks after buying these HDD disks and everything
was ok with them, except the fact that not all smart data was available to me.
For example, the number of hours these disks have been worked was unavailable.
However, after some time, one of the disks reported bad sectors.
So, I have swapped it for the spare one, deleted all information from it
and was prepared to return it to the seller, but found out that after that
operation all the bad sectors magically disappeared from the disk.
I think that these bad sectors appeared after sudden outages
that we experienced at the time during blackouts.
After buying UPS, I swapped the disks back and now the "repared"
in such a way HDD works without any bad sectors for quite a long time.
> > 2) my almost 20 years old Ultra-Durable Gigabyte motherboard
>
> Try a different SATA port and cable from what you've been using so far to
> connect the second hard drive. Either may be faulty.
I now think that this is the most probable reason.
Thank you for the suggestion. I will try this.
> > 3) the Linux system itself.
>
> Highly unlikely, but booting with a liveUSB will soon confirm this.
Thank you for this suggestion as well and for all your insites in general.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
2025-02-01 0:13 ` gevisz
@ 2025-02-16 16:50 ` Wols Lists
2025-03-02 21:58 ` gevisz
0 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: Wols Lists @ 2025-02-16 16:50 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
On 01/02/2025 00:13, gevisz wrote:
> The problem is that after booting with an additional HDD,
> one of these ZFS HDDs does not report any of its disk id:
> nor wwn neighter in the form ata-WDC_WD5000*.
>
>>> The situation remained the same even after swapping the
>>> undetected 500GB WD HDD with the one.
> And now, this makes me think that the problem is indeed with the SATA port.
I know I'm very late to the party but ...
As linux boots, it will allocate an sd* address to all the drives it
sees. So if you've got three drives, but only sda and sdb, then one of
them hasn't been detected.
Seeing as /dev/disk/by-id is only a symlink to /dev/sda, /dev/sdb etc,
from what you say I suspect you won't see the relevant sdx entry in /dev
That to me seems the obvious way to do things - linux assigns a "random"
name to the device, so it can read the device, and then symlinks the
device name to whatever random code got assigned initially.
As to why, do you have a manual for your mobo? It's an unfortunate fact
(and I don't know when it started) that a lot of SATA ports nowadays
don't work a lot of the time. When I was looking for a mobo, there was a
lot of "if you stick an NVMe in, it will disable SATA4" or whatever.
Likewise, if you used an external graphics card, depending on what PCIe
it was, it might disable certain SATA ports. Given that I wanted about
six *working* sata ports, that was a pain in the proverbial!
Basically, a lot of things nowadays run over the PCIe bus, and it's very
common for (a) lanes to be shared between different devices, and (b)
there's a pecking order - if multiple devices share a lane, only the
highest up the pecking order will work.
So of course, sods law probably says you can't even get a SATA expansion
board, because that will require the hijacked lane and won't work ...
Cheers,
Wol
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
2025-02-16 16:50 ` Wols Lists
@ 2025-03-02 21:58 ` gevisz
2025-03-03 9:55 ` Michael
0 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: gevisz @ 2025-03-02 21:58 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
вс, 16 февр. 2025 г. в 18:51, Wols Lists <antlists@youngman.org.uk>:
>
> On 01/02/2025 00:13, gevisz wrote:
> > The problem is that after booting with an additional HDD,
> > one of these ZFS HDDs does not report any of its disk id:
> > nor wwn neighter in the form ata-WDC_WD5000*.
> >
> >>> The situation remained the same even after swapping the
> >>> undetected 500GB WD HDD with the one.
> > And now, this makes me think that the problem is indeed with the SATA port.
>
> I know I'm very late to the party but ...
>
> As linux boots, it will allocate an sd* address to all the drives it
> sees. So if you've got three drives, but only sda and sdb, then one of
> them hasn't been detected.
>
> Seeing as /dev/disk/by-id is only a symlink to /dev/sda, /dev/sdb etc,
> from what you say I suspect you won't see the relevant sdx entry in /dev
> That to me seems the obvious way to do things - linux assigns a "random"
> name to the device, so it can read the device, and then symlinks the
> device name to whatever random code got assigned initially.
>
> As to why, do you have a manual for your mobo? It's an unfortunate fact
> (and I don't know when it started) that a lot of SATA ports nowadays
> don't work a lot of the time. When I was looking for a mobo, there was a
> lot of "if you stick an NVMe in, it will disable SATA4" or whatever.
> Likewise, if you used an external graphics card, depending on what PCIe
> it was, it might disable certain SATA ports. Given that I wanted about
> six *working* sata ports, that was a pain in the proverbial!
>
> Basically, a lot of things nowadays run over the PCIe bus, and it's very
> common for (a) lanes to be shared between different devices, and (b)
> there's a pecking order - if multiple devices share a lane, only the
> highest up the pecking order will work.
>
> So of course, sods law probably says you can't even get a SATA expansion
> board, because that will require the hijacked lane and won't work ...
Thank you for your insight.
Probably, after using my Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
motherboard for almost 20 years, I indeed should read its manual. :)
After all, "if nothing else helps, try to read the manual." :)
Will do it in the nearest future, but I doubt that it says something
about this issue.
However, I think that you are right and the problem lies in the motherboard.
By the way, for years, I have had another issue with it that confirms your
point of view: if I start my computer with a Logitech USB video camera
plugged in, I randomly do not have a sound out. By "randomly" I mean
that sometimes the sound out may be present and sometimes not.
I have tried everything and even started a thread about it here, but
nothing helped.
Finally, I used to start my computer without my USB video camera
plugged in, and it guarantees the presence of an audio after booting.
Additional information: I have AMD/ATI RV740 PRO [Radeon HD 4770]
video card plugged into PCIEX16_1 slot and (never used) "brackets",
one of which is connected to F_AUDIO and the other is connected to a SATA port.
The manual also says that my motherboard has 6 SATA ports working
via South Bridge and 4 SATA ports working via another Gigabyte SATA chip.
Maybe, I have to experiment with connecting my hard drives to SATA
ports in different order...
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with detecting ZFS HDD
2025-03-02 21:58 ` gevisz
@ 2025-03-03 9:55 ` Michael
0 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: Michael @ 2025-03-03 9:55 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5670 bytes --]
On Sunday, 2 March 2025 21:58:15 Greenwich Mean Time gevisz wrote:
> вс, 16 февр. 2025 г. в 18:51, Wols Lists <antlists@youngman.org.uk>:
> > On 01/02/2025 00:13, gevisz wrote:
> > > The problem is that after booting with an additional HDD,
> > > one of these ZFS HDDs does not report any of its disk id:
> > > nor wwn neighter in the form ata-WDC_WD5000*.
> > >
> > >>> The situation remained the same even after swapping the
> > >>> undetected 500GB WD HDD with the one.
> > >
> > > And now, this makes me think that the problem is indeed with the SATA
> > > port.
> >
> > I know I'm very late to the party but ...
> >
> > As linux boots, it will allocate an sd* address to all the drives it
> > sees. So if you've got three drives, but only sda and sdb, then one of
> > them hasn't been detected.
> >
> > Seeing as /dev/disk/by-id is only a symlink to /dev/sda, /dev/sdb etc,
> > from what you say I suspect you won't see the relevant sdx entry in /dev
> > That to me seems the obvious way to do things - linux assigns a "random"
> > name to the device, so it can read the device, and then symlinks the
> > device name to whatever random code got assigned initially.
> >
> > As to why, do you have a manual for your mobo? It's an unfortunate fact
> > (and I don't know when it started) that a lot of SATA ports nowadays
> > don't work a lot of the time. When I was looking for a mobo, there was a
> > lot of "if you stick an NVMe in, it will disable SATA4" or whatever.
> > Likewise, if you used an external graphics card, depending on what PCIe
> > it was, it might disable certain SATA ports. Given that I wanted about
> > six *working* sata ports, that was a pain in the proverbial!
> >
> > Basically, a lot of things nowadays run over the PCIe bus, and it's very
> > common for (a) lanes to be shared between different devices, and (b)
> > there's a pecking order - if multiple devices share a lane, only the
> > highest up the pecking order will work.
> >
> > So of course, sods law probably says you can't even get a SATA expansion
> > board, because that will require the hijacked lane and won't work ...
With marketing names changing faster than the seasons it is not always easy to
understand from a MoBo manual what's what. It may take some digging in old
reviews and diagrams of the CPU architecture to bottom out what components are
driven by the CPU, the Northbridge (NB) via the Front Side Bus (FSB), or the
slower Southbridge (SB). Normally the PCIe bus or AGP would be hooked off the
NB to attain a higher throughput to the CPU/RAM. IDE/ATA/SATA/PCI would be
driven off the SB. As CPUs became faster the FSB to the MoBo chipset became a
bottleneck, so components started being incorporated into the CPU.
> Thank you for your insight.
>
> Probably, after using my Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
> motherboard for almost 20 years, I indeed should read its manual. :)
>
> After all, "if nothing else helps, try to read the manual." :)
>
> Will do it in the nearest future, but I doubt that it says something
> about this issue.
>
> However, I think that you are right and the problem lies in the motherboard.
It should hopefully hint as to where SATA ports are connected to on the MoBo.
PCIe driven SATA via a SATA bus controller may be faster than some SB chip, if
only marginally so.
As already mentioned the PCIe bus may be sharing lanes between components
which could cause drives to disappear, or lose their expected speed.
> By the way, for years, I have had another issue with it that confirms your
> point of view: if I start my computer with a Logitech USB video camera
> plugged in, I randomly do not have a sound out. By "randomly" I mean
> that sometimes the sound out may be present and sometimes not.
>
> I have tried everything and even started a thread about it here, but
> nothing helped.
>
> Finally, I used to start my computer without my USB video camera
> plugged in, and it guarantees the presence of an audio after booting.
Only recently, in the age of pipewire and wireplumber, I noticed something
similar. If I am playing a video on a browser and at the same time try to
play another video on mpv, the mpv remains silent until I stop/close the
browser. :-/
> Additional information: I have AMD/ATI RV740 PRO [Radeon HD 4770]
> video card plugged into PCIEX16_1 slot and (never used) "brackets",
> one of which is connected to F_AUDIO and the other is connected to a SATA
> port.
>
> The manual also says that my motherboard has 6 SATA ports working
> via South Bridge and 4 SATA ports working via another Gigabyte SATA chip.
OK, the SB chipset is the conventional way to hook drives, while the 4 SATA
ports driven off the PCIe via a SATA controller chip were provided to fulfil a
user need for MOAR disks because ... MOAR data. Theoretically, the MoBo OEMs
would have matched the PCIe Vs SB generations and throughput, but when every
port is occupied I expect you would notice small throughput differences in
benchmarks. However, this does not explain why a whole drive decides to go
AWOL, *unless* the MoBo manual provides an explicit statement to this effect.
For example, this MoBo claims to lose one SATA port when an M.2 connected
drive is also operated in SATA mode:
https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1044083/
> Maybe, I have to experiment with connecting my hard drives to SATA
> ports in different order...
I'd start with the manual, Gigabyte's support pages and reviews/benchmarks, to
bottom out what are the real-world limits of your board.
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