XigmaNAS

NAS4Free 9.2.0.1 (revision 972) x86-embedded
DELL GX280 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz 1015MiB RAM

Intel ICH6 UDMA100 controller BCM5750 1000BASE-T media interface bus=1
hubaddr=8 port=4 devaddr=5 interface=0 PLIP network interface Intel
82801FB/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6) USB controller USB-A Intel 82801FB (ICH6) USB
2.0 controller Intel 82801FB/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6) USB controller USB-B
Intel 82801FB/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6) USB controller USB-C Intel
82801FB/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6) USB controller USB-D bus=1 hubaddr=3 port=4
devaddr=3 interface=0 bus=1 hubaddr=7 port=4 devaddr=4 interface=0
bus=1 hubaddr=2 port=0 devaddr=2 interface=0 bus=1 hubaddr=2 port=0
devaddr=2 interface=1 bus=1 hubaddr=1 port=4 devaddr=2 interface=0

Subject:
NAS4Free confuses / swaps / changes USB Shares when adding a new USB
drive

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Description:
I have a home network with several Windows PC's. For NAS configuration
simplicity, all PC's have the same usernames and passwords. (Please. No
security-related comments). I have used a NAS4Free server with an external USB
drive to retain all my files (data, video, music, photos, etc) in a simple
non-Raid configuration for several years with a single USB drive attached for
storage. My NAS4 Free installation has been on several different older PCs with
several different NAS4Free versions. The problem I am writing about has occurred
on every installation, so it's not PC-specific or NAS4Free version-specific. I
am only writing now because I want to install more hard drives on the NAS and
this problem is directly impacting my ability to do so. Previously, it was more
of a nuisance than a problem. I just attached extra drives directly to each PC
to previously avoid the issue in the title. I now want to remove those drives from the
individual PC's and connect them to the NAS, so its a problem.

Here is what happens (All drives are formatted NTFS and mounted as MBR):
Add/configure/share a single USB Drive > No problems. Works Fine.

Add/configure/share a second USB drive > No problems. Works Fine. All the shares
are viewable as they should be.

Add/configure/share a third USB drive > No problems. Works Fine. All the shares
are viewable as they should be UNTIL I power down and reboot the server. At
this point it seems NAS4Free "forgets" the shares configuration. The shares
for drive one will appear under drive 2 or 3. The shares for drive 2 and 3 will
appear under one of the other drives. I can see this "share-swapping" not only
from my networked Windows computers, but also from within the NAS4Free GUI
(Advanced>File Manager> (login) >then /mnt/shares directories).

If I power down and remove the third USB drive, the shares on the first 2 drives
appear again as they were originally configured.

I am not sure exactly how I did it, but I was able to get a 3-USB drive
configuration to remain stable, and now the above scenario is repeating itself
when I try to add a 4th USB drive.

Well, sorry to say but it is quite easy here:

Stay away from USB Drives in combination with Nas4Free. That is and always have been the recommendation with Nas4Free.
There have always been problems in this context, I think there wasn't ever real support for this topic. If you want to use N4F for your NAS, please choose a configuration which attachs the disks directly via SATA.

Regards
apollo

Sorry to hear that. Is there a reason for the behavior that N4F exhibits with USB drives? It would seem that if a USB device is plugged in to a USB port, it gets assigned an address or device ID by the OS. You then assign shares to that ID, there shouldn't be any reason for N4F to forget or confuse things.

If what you say is true, then it seems that one of the major reasons N4F exists (ie using old hardware to create a NAS) is a futile exercise, since external/USB drives are everywhere and are easy to install. Expanding SATA capacity in old hardware is more involved and probably not something the average semi-technical person isn't going to do.. Most people, I don't think, are going to go out and buy new NAS hardware either. My guess is that many people use existing external drives and old hardware to build their N4F configuration.

Am I missing something as to why USB isn't better supported or recommended? In all of the reading and research that I've done about N4F, I don't ever recall seeing a statement similar to "Dont use USB:.

First, NTFS is not well supported. If you use GPT/UFS (native format of FreeBSD underlying OS NAS4Free),
the shares are selected with unique UFS ID of it, so never swapped shares.
however, the drive swapped may be resolved from "Disks|Management" with "Clear config and Import disks".
(There is no way to fix drive assignment at this time)

I tried the "Clear Config and import" process......but not recently. As I recall, the last time I tried to install more than 2 USB drives and ran into problems, I did a Clear Config and ran into some problems, but I dont recall specifically what they were. I just remember thinking it wasn't worth doing it again.

If I understand your last post correctly, if I wipe the USB drives clean, then reformatted/remounted as UFS/GPT, the chance of a problem should be reduced or eliminated. Correct? Reformatting 3 of the drives isn't an issue, since they are mostly empty and have files that I've copied (not yet moved) from other drives. The 4th drive is mostly full and would be more of a problem, but I could still do it by making a backup copy, then reformatting. If all I'm looking at is some short-term effort reformatting to UFS, and the trade off is long term stability, I can deal with that.

On the other hand, if reformatting to UFS only gets me marginal stability or marginal benefit, then maybe I'm better off looking at hardware that is specifically configured for NAS purposes. Please comment and advise.