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Grogster

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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9757

Posted: 08:10am 18 Jul 2022

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Hi all.

It would seem that many of the new USB3 SATA hard-drive docks, DON'T support Linux.
I have one of these things from Jaycar and it will see and work with any Windoze based HDD filesystem from FAT16 to NTFS, but it flatly REFUSES to work with any Linux filesystem such as ext3 or ext4 when plugged into a Linux machine. �Linux simply refuses to see it at all. �Put a FAT32 or NTFS drive in the same dock on the same Linux machine, and Linux picks it up fine.

Specs on the Jaycar website say it supports Windoze and MAC, but does not SPECIFICALLY state Linux support. �Interestingly, it does mention MAC-OS 10+, and I thought that MAC's essentially use the same UNIX/Linux type filesystems, but perhaps the MAC filesystem is different enough from ext3 or ext4, that the dock can't see the Linux stuff.

This is very strange.

I would not have thought that a chipset in a HDD dock, would CARE about the filesystem, so long as it can access the drive(leaving all that to the OS), but it would seem that new docks have to be OS filesystem aware, or they won't even see them.

How screwy is that?! (rhetorical)
I am 100% sure that older USB2 docks did NOT have that issue - I remember having a dock on an old Ubuntu setup using ext2, and it worked...

Does anyone have or can anyone recommend a SATA dock that DOES work with Linux?

EDIT: Ignore. Found a solution, albeit a bit unconventional. External SATA power-supply, USB-to-SATA adaptor. Plug in power, plug in SATA cable to USB adaptor, plug into Linux machine, drive is detected. But the dock not being able to see Linux format drives is curious, as I did not think it mattered - the OS is supposed to handle that.....

Edited 2022-07-18 18:21 by Grogster

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4147

Posted: 09:22am 18 Jul 2022

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Very odd.

I have a very similar dock but it's older (USB2).

Possibly the messages (from dmesg) when you plug it in may help.

Mine (on 1st use in 2015):

usb 2-1.1: >New USB device found, idVendor=152d, idProduct=2329
usb 2-1.1: >New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
usb 2-1.1: >Product: USB to ATA/ATAPI Bridge
usb 2-1.1: >Manufacturer: JMicron
usb 2-1.1: >SerialNumber: 152D20329000
usb-storage 2-1.1:1.0: >Quirks match for vid 152d pid 2329: 8020
scsi27 : usb-storage 2-1.1:1.0
scsi 27:0:0:0: >Direct-Access � � SAMSUNG �HD204UI � � � � � � � PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS
sd 27:0:0:0: >Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
sd 27:0:0:0: >[sdc] 3907029168 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.81 TiB)

That looks to mean there's a chip/etc that was recognised by Linux so maybe yours isn't (or a driver needs adding to the kernel)?

John
Edited 2022-07-18 19:23 by JohnS

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