improving external usb hhd reliability

Discussion of developmental aspects of the MiSTer Project.
jcarvalho
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improving external usb hhd reliability

Unread post by jcarvalho »

Hi, I have a weird issue that is the following:
Connected to the Mistr I have an usb HDD formatted with extFAT. Many times using filezilla I cant browse the media/usb0, no files listed.In cores like ATARI800 sometimes folder ATARI800 folder not found error.
When it finds the folder many times the core "loses" the connection to it.
Is an "optimal" usb port to connect HDD drives or anyone will do?
I have optimized and defragged the USB HDD, it took about 1 day to do the optimization and defrag process.

What I am doing wrong please? is the usb port that I am using? I use a random one. The USB HDD has is own PSU, not drawing power from Mister PSU

Many thanks!
jca
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Re: improving external usb hhd reliability

Unread post by jca »

Someone previously mentioned problems when HD go to "sleep" and also provided a "solution" by sending a command to the HD to not stop the spindle but this will only work if the HD supports this command.
IAmParadox
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Re: improving external usb hhd reliability

Unread post by IAmParadox »

Sorry for the wall of text...

The issue with filezilla is possibly due to the fact that usb devices are enumerated differently, when the system starts, and, a device listed as usb0, could be usb1 on the next boot, even when all devices stay in the same usb port, if you go plugging them into random ports, you increase the possibility that they will end up with different assignments, in filezilla, you have to simply find the particular node it was assigned to, this time, and open it, but, the biggest PITA of this, is cores like the Amiga and AO486, will need their VHD IMG KICK ADF, etc. files reconfigured to point to the new node, before they will boot. The issue with directory names, like ATARI2600 is due to the way different filesystems store the filename, when I moved my games directory from the exFAT SD Card to my NTFS USB HDD, I had to rename many of the folders, because the core looks for a directory with a name like ATARI2600, it seems some filesystems go, "ok Atari2600 is close enough, here you go, core." (I assume, it returns the Folder name in the case the core expects) while other filesystems, go, "wait, a minute, ATARI2600 and Atari2600 are different names, nope, core, no can has folder." I'm thinking that, even though DOS and Windows aren't case sensitive, NTFS comes (in a rather roundabout way) from *nix (The lead programmer of Windows NT was the creator of VMS) so, it must still have some of that case sensitiveness embedded in it, whereas, exFAT comes more from Fat12 FAT16 FAT32, etc. all of which have always been case insensitive. It's a reminder that The current Windows is basically, a merging of two different (although, seemingly similar) OS projects, from the same company. although, I'm not sure why you would get this from an exFAT HDD, because, it should operate the same as the exFAT on the SD card, I would think. So, maybe that means, it's something else causing the case sensitivity.
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