USB3 HDD not detected

Issue: USB3 HDD not detected / not working

Symptoms:

  1. HDD does not show up in block info
  2. HDD does not show up in /dev/sd*
  3. USB3 HDD works fine on other devices (e.g. PC, Laptop, ...)
  4. USB2 drives are working fine

Diagnosis:

  1. Does the USB3 HDD show up in lsusb and lsusb -t?
  2. Does it show up in ls -l /dev/sd*?
  3. Does logread yield any helpful information related to USB when you connect/disconnect the HDD?
  4. Does a different USB3 HDD (different manufacturer or different model) work correctly?
  5. Do you have all required USB related kmods installed? → Check with opkg list-installed | grep usb
  6. Do you have all required filesystem kmods installed? → Check with opkg list-installed | grep kmod-fs-

Root causes:

  1. kmod-usb-storage-uas not installed
  2. specific USB controller problems (e.g. JMicron JMS561U, JMS578, ...)
  3. The XHCI driver for MT7621 is incompatible for UAS in USB 3.0

Solutions:

  1. install kmod-usb-storage-uasopkg update && opkg install kmod-usb-storage-uas
  2. remove kmod-usb-storage-uas (=fallback to USB2, if acceptable and nothing else works)
  3. Use a different USB3 HDD (different Manufacturer or different model)
  4. Use quirks

Further reading:

Forum links: