[smartmontools-support] smartd resets the USB bus

[Christian Kujau]

I have an external disk enclosure with two disks, attached to a Linux 
laptop, via USB 3. I'm using a fully updated Alpine Linux system. Until a 
few days ago these both of these disks were spinning rust (Toshiba 
MD04ACA400). Now one of these disks has been replaced by a Crucial SSD and 
I had to update my smartd.conf because the name has changed:

-------
 /dev/disk/by-id/ata-EliteProDual_U3FW-1_15L7K1X7FSAA -d sat -a -o on -S on
 /dev/disk/by-id/ata-EliteProDual_U3FW-2_2442E9903786 -d sat -a -o on -S on
-------

But, after restarting smartd I could see kernel messages that the USB 
device just reset, see below. And smartd appears to run after the 
restart, but logs:

----------------------------------
[...]
smartd[24937]: Monitoring 2 ATA/SATA, 0 SCSI/SAS and 0 NVMe devices
smartd[24937]: Device: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-EliteProDual_U3FW-1_15L7K1X7FSAA [SAT], failed to read Temperature
smartd[24937]: Device: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-EliteProDual_U3FW-2_2442E9903786 [SAT], failed to read SMART Attribute Data
smartd[24937]: Device: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-EliteProDual_U3FW-2_2442E9903786 [SAT], Read SMART Self Test Log Failed
smartd[24937]: Device: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-EliteProDual_U3FW-2_2442E9903786 [SAT], Read Summary SMART Error Log failed
----------------------------------

Now, USB resets are of course in the kernel domain, but I still wonder 
what smartd does here that would cause the USB device to reset, when all 
this worked perfectly before when both disks inside this disk enclosure 
were of the same type.

Both devices can be queried just fine via smartcl, see below.

Does anybody have an idea what's going on here? Maybe somebody else 
experienced something similar? Searching the interwebs for "smartd" and 
"usb resets" did not help so far, or I overlooked something. Or can smartd 
be configured to more "carefully" open that disk?

Thanks,
Christian.

------------------------------------------------------
$ smartd --version | head -1
smartd 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.12.8-0-edge] (local build)

$ date
Fri Jan 10 22:51:53 CET 2025

$ /etc/init.d/smartd restart
 * Stopping smartd ... [ ok ]
 * Starting smartd ... [ ok ]

$ dmesg -T | tail -30 | cut -c12-
 22:29:00 2025] sd 6:0:0:1: [sdf] Attached SCSI disk
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 13 using xhci_hcd
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: device firmware changed
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: USB disconnect, device number 13
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: new SuperSpeed USB device number 14 using xhci_hcd
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1e91, idProduct=a3a8, bcdDevice= 2.07
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: Product: Elite Pro Dual
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: Manufacturer: OWC
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: SerialNumber: RANDOM__CC4CDBF833EE
 22:51:58 2025] usb 4-1: UAS is ignored for this device, using usb-storage instead
 22:51:58 2025] usb-storage 4-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
 22:51:58 2025] usb-storage 4-1:1.0: Quirks match for vid 1e91 pid a3a8: 800000
 22:51:58 2025] scsi host6: usb-storage 4-1:1.0
 22:51:59 2025] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ElitePro Dual U3FW-1      0207 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
 22:51:59 2025] scsi 6:0:0:1: Direct-Access     ElitePro Dual U3FW-2      0207 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16).
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] 7814037168 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 TB/3.64 TiB)
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page found
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:1: [sdf] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16).
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:1: [sdf] 7814037168 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 TB/3.64 TiB)
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:1: [sdf] Write Protect is off
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:1: [sdf] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:1: [sdf] No Caching mode page found
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:1: [sdf] Assuming drive cache: write through
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:1: [sdf] Attached SCSI disk
 22:51:59 2025] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk

$ lsusb -t -v | tail -3
    ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
    |__ Port 001: Dev 013, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 5000M
        ID 1e91:a3a8 Other World Computing 


$ smartctl -d sat -a /dev/disk/by-id/ata-EliteProDual_U3FW-1_15L7K1X7FSAA  
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     EliteProDual U3FW-1
Serial Number:    15L7K1X7FSAA
Firmware Version: FP2A
User Capacity:    4,000,787,030,016 bytes [4.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Device is:        Not in smartctl database 7.3/5528
ATA Version is:   ATA/ATAPI-7 (minor revision not indicated)
Local Time is:    Fri Jan 10 23:01:44 2025 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
[...]

$ smartctl -d sat -a /dev/disk/by-id/ata-EliteProDual_U3FW-2_2442E9903786  
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     EliteProDual U3FW-2
Serial Number:    2442E9903786
Firmware Version: FP2A
User Capacity:    4,000,787,030,016 bytes [4.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Device is:        Not in smartctl database 7.3/5528
ATA Version is:   ATA/ATAPI-7 (minor revision not indicated)
Local Time is:    Fri Jan 10 23:02:29 2025 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
[...]

-- 
BOFH excuse #68:

only available on a need to know basis