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I have a USB-3 drive that I use as a tertiary backup when I travel. Every now and then it goes into Read Only mode and I have to try to figure out all over again what to do in order to make it Read/Write again. The Disks utility... manually mounting and unmounting... etc. etc. Any tips or tricks to keep this from happening?

I have a USB-3 drive that I use as a tertiary backup when I travel. Every now and then it goes into Read Only mode and I have to try to figure out all over again what to do in order to make it Read/Write again. The Disks utility... manually mounting and unmounting... etc. etc. Any tips or tricks to keep this from happening?

(post is archived)

[–] • 4 pts

Some USB drives just do this because the firmware has issues or they're cheap drives. Often enough, that's the end of life for the dive.

I'd suggest just trying another brand of drive.

[–] • 1 pt

Some USB drives just do this because the firmware has issues or they're cheap drives. Often enough, that's the end of life for the dive.

I'd suggest just trying another brand of drive.

It's no more than 3 months old and has been doing this since I got it. I have a NAS for regular (scheduled) backups but I like to be able to quickly run a manual backup before I get on a flight or take a trip.

[–] • 2 pts

I've had some go bad after a few days. It's such a cutthroat business that manufacturers cut corners.

Used to have those old 1 and 2GB Micro Center drives last about 6 months with moderate use before they'd go read only.

[–] • 1 pt

That has to be a lot of uses. I still have an eight GB drive I put a Linux ISO on every few months since I bought it like ten years ago.

[–] • 1 pt

I've had some go bad after a few days. It's such a cutthroat business that manufacturers cut corners.

Used to have those old 1 and 2GB Micro Center drives last about 6 months with moderate use before they'd go read only.

Yeah, I fear I'm going to have to buy a new one eventually. Cest la vie.

[–] • 1 pt

a 5tb ext4 hard drive just pulled the same crap with me last week. Good times.

[–] • 1 pt

They're not SanDisk are they? More specifically SanDisk Cruzer. Those are the worst flash drives I've ever used. Some die within days. Others will randomly freeze in the middle of read/write operations and continue when it feels like it.

Get yourself a portable mSata or NVMe drive. Some of them aren't much larger than a flash drive.

[–] • 1 pt

No not SanDisk. It's a drive brand I never heard of. I got it as swag from work.

[–] • 1 pt

just bought one yesterday labeled "memorex". Haven't seen or heard of that brand in forty years.

[–] • 1 pt

Is it live, or is it Memorex?

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

What file format are you using on the USB drive? Try changing it to Ext4 after backing up the data, then copy the data back over. If you want to use the USB drive on non-linux machines, use exFAT.

[–] • 0 pt

I'll try Ext4 next. I'm backing up the data on it right now (backing up a back up... jeez) and then I'll reformat the drive. Thanks!

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

FYI - Ext4 won't work with windows or mac.

[–] • 1 pt

FYI - Ext4 won't work with windows or mac. It will work better for linux.

I'm only using Linux, so I'm cool with that! ;-)

[–] • 1 pt

Older flash drives and disks have a physical read-only switch. Usually a small jumper or toggle. Maybe it is switched to read-only?

[–] • 1 pt

No physical switch. It was the first thing I looked for. I can usually get it to go back to R/W using the Disks tool, but not this time.

[–] • 0 pt

This could be the result of a cascade of false errors all stemming from one poor design with the usb stick itself.

For example, the filesystem driver will remount as readonly if the underlying driver, such as the mass storage device driver, reports a severe enough error while reading/writing. That device driver may report an error because it may be forwarding an error code received from yet a lower level driver, such as the usb controller, or it could be an error code received from the firmware in the usb stick.

In my experience, the root problem is either an actual flash wear issue or a timing glitch. For example, Linux can be too fast / efficient at the bus level and expose timing bugs in cheap peripheral firmware, whereas the windows driver may have embedded longer timeouts between I/O transactions sufficient enough to avoid/bury the bug.

[–] • 1 pt

I'm going to buy a new drive. I reformatted it and am running a new backup for now. That puts the data on this drive (albeit for who knows how long) and my NAS. That should be good to tide me over if anything happens while I'm traveling later this week.