External 4.0TB hard drive not detected on reboot
One of two external 4.0TB usb-connected hard drives can readily be coaxed into
automounting by cycling its power switch, but the second one doesn't have such
a switch; I have to unplug its USB connection. I'd rather not risk wearing out
its physical USB port connections. Nor do I want to insert a switch into its
power cord. Is there a way of forcing autodetection with software ?
The system is on a Lenovo T430 laptop running TQ_10.
The solution for me was to install a double-pole rocker switch in-line on the output cord
of the power supply of the USB-connected 4.0TB HDD and to turn that switch on after the
Desktop image appears during Trisquel's boot-up. The HDD then gets automounted according
to /etc/fstab like the other storage devices. After shutdown of the operating system I turn
the rocker switch off, giving the HDD a rest.
Couldn't you just shutdown the machine and then restart, instead of going through the reboot process?
Andyprough wonders why being able to restart one or the other of the two 4.0TB external
HDD's is my preference.
(1) The Seagate HDD has the unique feature of taking periodic naps after short (16 minute)
periods of inactivity, which breaks the USB connection; but the only way to reconnect the
HDD is to cycle its on/off switch, which then activates automount.
(2) The Western Digital HDD has no on/off switch of its own; during recent copying of big
blocks of data, errors cropped up that caused it and its mate to shut down. The added
power supply switch lets me restart it in order to activate automount.
(3) Both HDDs are 3.5 inch and slower to spin up than 2.5 inch HDDs and sometimes are left
behind during cold starts. They do better on restarts, as the disks aren't physically
stopped and coast long enough to catch up to the smaller HDDs during boot-up.
(4) Being able to rest one or the other HDD can prolong its useful life.
>"(1) The Seagate HDD has the unique feature of taking periodic naps after short (16 minute) periods of inactivity, which breaks the USB connection"
>"(2) The Western Digital HDD has no on/off switch of its own; during recent copying of big blocks of data, errors cropped up that caused it and its mate to shut down. The added power supply switch lets me restart it in order to activate automount."
Sounds to me like you are headed toward a possible data loss if you continue these practices. I think that rather than ocassionally switching the power off and back on to them, you need to find the cause of why they are acting this way.
Have you explored the TLP settings on your system? You can shut off the USB sleep setting for various devices. Might be worth exploring. TLPUI is a useful GUI program for dealing with TLP in an easy, graphical manner.
You computer can realy support the 4TB?
Isharefreedom asks whether my Lenovo T430 can support 4TB.
GPartEd might be the limitation, but it never complains while partitioning those drives.
File manager is another story: ask it to copy & paste large data quantities (GB of #'s
of files) and the four processors sooner or later try to juggle too much information
as can be visualized with the System Monitor. That can be handled by subdividing such
tasks, which gets the job done far more quickly.
Physical size may be the limitation: Those 4TB drives are in 3.5 inch format, for which
there is not sufficient internal space. In 2.5 inch format, multi-terabyte HDDs have
to have too many data-storage disks. Two TB can be accommodated; more gets expensive.
Solid-state storage is similarly more dear, the more TB you try to get.
Data-transfer rates will be a limitation with external storage.
Here's a screenshot of the Disks graphic of the Western Digital 4.0TB external HDD.
