I have encountered a compatibility issue when attempting to connect my Thermaltake SATA to USB 3.0 docking station, model ST0019U-A1011004899 to the USB 3.0 port on my Western Digital My Book Live Duo. The MBLD does not detect the presence of the connected drive unless I replace the USB 3.0 cable with a USB 2.0 cable, and then the drive (still inserted in the same docking station) is detected. Of course, the transfer speeds are naturally much slower than I could achieve with USB3.
I have another NAS device from a different manufacturer, and when connecting the same external drive bay to that server’s USB 3.0 ports, it has no trouble detecting the Thermaltake docking bay, regardless of whether the drive is formatted as NTFS or Linux Ext4. With that connection, I am seeing transfer speeds far exceeding USB2 capability, so I am sure I have a valid USB3 connection.
Have any of you had success connecting any external SATA to USB 3.0 docking station to the MBLD, and achieving transfer speeds one would expect from USB 3.0?
I have considered the StarTech.com SuperSpeed USB 3.0 eSATA Hard Drive Docking Station with Cooling Fan as a replacement for the Thermaltake device, but StarTech’s online support representative indicated they have not / could not test for specific compatibility with the MBLD. So before purchasing other devices, and then having to return them if they do not solve the problem, I would really benefit from the experience of other users.
I am a bit disappointed with the MBLD’s apparent limited USB 3.0 compatibility; to be fair, though, I should say that I have not been able to connect a native USB 3.0 drive to the MBLD, because I do not own one to try. So it is possible that my particular MBLD simply has some deficiency with respect to its USB 3.0 interface.
I have some reasons to believe that the MBLD does claim to support USB 3.0:
During a phone conversation with a level-two support representative, I had a long discussion about this issue, and lack of 3.0 support was never stated.
The port at the rear of the MBLD is colored blue, which I believe is an industry standard indication of USB 3.0 compatibility.
The user guide, section CONFIGURING BASIC SETTINGS - 74 states this:Â Note: The My Book Live Duo device works with both USB 2.0 and 3.0 storage devices; however, USB 3.0 storage devices may not perform at maximum performance speeds when used with the My Book Live Duo device.
However, I had not carefully read the fine print, cautioning that performance may not achieve full USB 3.0 speeds. But if those items noted above are true, then the question about whether there are any compatible external docking devices still remains valid.
I verified that the lsusb command does indeed agree with what you posted, and I am nearly convinced that you are correct about the lack of support for USB 3.0; but I would like to take a couple of steps to investigate further:
I will double-check the color of the port on my device when I get home tonight.
I will post a follow-up to my tech support case #, asking why the representative I spoke with told me the device had been tested with native Western Digital USB 3.0 devices (leading me to believe 3.0 is supported), and why he suggested that I post the question on the user forum to inquire if others had any better success with USB 3.0 connections (other than the fact that USB 3.0 devices will play on a 2.0 port, provided the correct cable is used). I would think that during our conversaton, he would have specifically corrected my wrong expectation if the device was only 2.0-capable.
I will take a walk upstairs and speak to one of the folks in the tech support department (probably not before tomorrow, since it might be too late today).
Well, I’m now convinced of your findings. I sent an email to one of our tech support people, but haven’t received a reply yet. But I think I know what that reply will say. I double-checked the color of the port on my device, and it is not blue; I don’t know how I could have been so sure it was blue, except that when I looked at it, I saw what I was hoping to see instead of what was there in front of me.
Thank you for introducing me to the lsusb command, which I hadn’t had occasion to discover before. I tried to execute it on my other NAS device (the one with USB 3.0 support), but the command is not supported as part of the standard product. I was able to discover some information about the ports on that device with the following:
DiskStation> pwd
/sys/bus/usb/devices
DiskStation> for port in usb*; do echo $port;cat $port/speed; done
usb1
480
usb2
480
usb3
480
usb4
5000
usb5
12
usb6
12
usb7
12
usb8
12
So there is at least one port capable of 5 Gbps. Here is the output of the same on the MBLD:
MyBookLiveDuo:/sys/bus/usb/devices# for port in usb*; do echo $port;cat $port/speed; done
usb1
480
I don’t know if the note in the MBLD User Guide would have misled anyone besides me, but it certainly had me on a goose chase. I think it would be less misleading if it stated something like: The external USB port supports USB 2.0 only. Because of backward compatibility, you may also connect a USB 3.0 device, but only by using a USB 2.0 cable, and you will only achieve USB 2.0 transfer speeds.
I see the explicit statements you referred to in the User Guide on the pages you stated. I’m not sure why the note later in the guide mentioning something about USB 3.0 influenced my thinking more than the other 3 statements that came before, except that it was another case of whishful thinking on my part.
Shortly after obtaining my MBLD, as I was filling it with data, I had hoped that I could speed the process by connecting a drive to the USB 3 port, and use ssh to do direct copying from the external drive to the internal shares, and possibly achieve greater throughput than by using another computer to transfer the files across Gig Ethernet. It was then that I tried connecting the docking bay with the USB 3 cable, and was disappointed to find it didn’t work.
Oh well, I found that copying the files from my other NAS device across the LAN to the MBLD was reasonably efficient, and I observed about 45 MB/sec on average.
I have some reasons to believe that the MBLD does claim to support USB 3.0:
The user guide, section CONFIGURING BASIC SETTINGS - 74 states this: Note: The My Book Live Duo device works with both USB 2.0 and 3.0 storage devices; however, USB 3.0 storage devices may not perform at maximum performance speeds when used with the My Book Live Duo device.
Thanks again,
Bruce
If you read a little closer… the device works with both USB2 and 3 devices (3.0 is backwards compatable and will work on a USB2.0 Slot. The USB3 may not perform at maximum performance speeds… because it is limited to USB2.0 that the downstream device (the duo) is limited to.)
I have a USB 3.0 Flash drive… I can connect to USB2.0 and run at 2.0 speeds… or i can hook to a 3.0 and get 3.0 speeds…
