Hi all,
I have an issue with an external hard drive that I'm at my wit's end with.
I'll try to keep it short:
My system is connected to an external SATA HD via USB 3 (used for backups).
For 6+ months, this setup has worked flawlessly.
About a week ago, I disconnected the external drive (a Seagate GoFlex
docking station + disk combo, but I've since switched to another
enclosure), put another drive in the dock, and reconnected. Ever since, my
system is possessed.
At random times, the external drive will disconnect for no discernible
reason. It can happen in the middle of a write or after the disk has been
idle or sleeping for hours. It may happen within minutes or days after the
device was first connected.
The only relevant thing I can find in the logs is a laconic "usb 3-1: USB
disconnect, device number 3".
Once the system is in this state, things are thoroughly messed up. For
starters, the disk will not reconnect (no errors or messages in dmesg) if I
plug it out and back in. Even rebooting the host will not bring it back!
Also, anything assuming the existence of certain USB devices is borked.
lsusb just hangs, forever. I can't kill -9 it. Heck, sometimes I can't even
rmmod xhci_hcd (same thing - just hangs, unkillable.)
Weirdly enough, USB 2 devices still work in the USB 3 port. In fact, this
is where this tale becomes entirely bizarre. The only way so far that I've
found to get the USB 3 back to live is this workaround: I plug in a USB 2
device in the USB 3 port (I have a Lexar memory card reader I use for this
purpose, but presumably, any USB 2 device would do), plug it out, plug the
disk back in, and voila! It connects. Until it disconnects again, and the
insane rain dance begins anew.
At this point, I have:
* tried 3 different HDDs (from 3 different manufacturers) so it's probably
not related to the disk.
* tried 2 different external enclosures/docks, so it's probably not related
to the usb-sata adapter.
* tried 2 different USB cables with those docks, so it's probably not the
cable.
* swapped the motherboard (a supermicro A1SAi-2750F) with an identical new
one, so probably not an electrical or mechanical issue with the board.
* disabled USB autosuspend (options usbcore autosuspend=-1 and
autosuspend_delay_ms=-1)
* upgraded from Wheezy (kernel 3.2.0-4-amd64) to Jessie (3.16.0-4-amd64).