Supported external USB drives

Support
1

Hi, I would like to know if a specific external USB drive is compatible with Manjaro.

The drive is the Toshiba Canvio Flex, 4TB > https://www.toshiba-storage.com/products/canvio-flex/

I have asked Toshiba directly and they said most of the time, their HDDs work in Linux but they have not been officially tested.

I have checked Linux Hardware Database and Toshiba Canvio is present, but not the Flex range. The Basics, Advance, Ready and Desk ranges are listed.

Is there a definitive way of finding out which drives work under Linux?

Thank you.

2

Hi @greyfox,

In my opinion plugging it in and testing it would be easiest. If you don’t have Manjaro installed yet, you could try it from a Live Environment.

Hope this helps!

3

Thank you for replying, Mirdarthos.

I forgot to mention that I have not bought the drive yet.

I can get it from my local Curry’s branch however they will only accept it back unused and unopened. My local Argos branch sells it as well however their returns policy is the same as Curry’s.

I guess It will just have to scour the net for someone who has used it on Linux.

4
  • Interface

USB 3.2 Gen 1 (USB 2.0 compatible)

The USB standard is universal - the speed you will get is decided by the port you connect it to - it will work unless it is DOA (Dead On Arrival) which equals a hardware defect.

5

If it works with Chrome OS, which is based on Gentoo, it will most likely work with any other Linux distribution, since they all use the same Linux kernel. The same applies to Android. See:

Anyway, it’s a standard USB drive that works everywhere since it just uses a universal driver.

6

Most drives come pre-formatted with NTSF I forget what the latest Linux driver is for that, but that might be an issue. They also can use some crazy deal for compressing the data, For myself I just format them ext4 and go about my day.

9

@linux-aarhus

The port is a USB 3.0 port as it has the blue overhead in it.

@megavolt

Interesting….I don’t want to purchase it and then not able to return it if it is not compatible. This is my biggest worry.

@fbt89

I am not bothered by that as I will format it anyway once plugged in.

To everyone, sorry for the late reply. I was working at the time.

Mod edit: Merged consecutive posts and added @mentions to keep things tidier. :wink:

10

This is some strange return policy.

From my understanding, the biggest incompatibility which i faced in the past was my Samsung 860 Pro SSD (internal)… and even this drive (formated with ext4) was fine for filestorage in Linux but when i started my games from that drive under Linux, it slows down the entire system which only occured under Linux, but the same SSD was 100% fine as i had Win10 installed on the drive and at the same time the Windows Games was running fine also.

I have several external drives, from WD and Seagate and Samsung (between 500Gbyte-5Tbyte) for normal data storage.
Its probably a bigger issue when you want to execute something and there are IO Operations and accesstime involved. Which maybe draw another picture then around the compatibility.

11

The retail sellers I can get the drive from have a strict return policy. To be able to return, the drive has to be unused and unopened.

I could go down the ebay route and purchase from a seller that accepts returns, however I would have to pay for return postage. Plus, there is an added annoyance of waiting for the item to be delivered.

They must be compatible with Linux and officially tested by the manufacturer unlike the Canvio Flex range.

I am going to use the drive purely for data storage so it will not be constantly powered like internal drives.

12

Don’t worry… what I mean is: the connection method is a universal standard - hence the name Universal Serial Bus usually shortend to USB, so what can go wrong?

13

Well….. a while back, I did buy a Toshiba Canvio external drive and I had to return it. The reason for the return was it would not mount onto the system. Manjaro did recognise the drive and it showed in GParted however, mounting the drive would not happen.

Because of this, I had to return it. I bought the drive through ebay however it is not in my order history. Really weird.

This is why I am worried.

14

What was it formatted as? GParted should have shown this. Could it have been ntfs and the “dirty bit” had been triggered? :thinking: Maybe a simple re-format into something Linux-native e.g. ext4 would have fixed that.

15

I have a Toshiba Canvio Flex 2TB and it works perfectly.

16

I’d guess so. :wink:

I’ll also add that unsuccessful attempts at connecting an ntfs formatted storage device may well result in said “dirty bit” being set, as in my above post, which will prevent modern Linux drivers from mounting it until the error(s) is (are) fixed using the proper tool (chkdsk IIRC), in a Windows environment.

I wouldn’t bother though. I’d just format the thing as ext4. :wink:

17

I can’t remember to be honest. I guess a reformat would have solved the problem, but I have no way of knowing.

I can use ext4however, I need the drive to be compatible with my smart TV and the TV only recognises FAT32 or NTFS.

Brilliant! So no issues at all?

Right, OK.

18

Is it possible the issue was user oriented rather than there being a problem with the USB itself?

I ask because there are many conditions to be met before one can successfully mount a disk in Linux – for example:

  • The device must be detected.
  • Volume(s) on the device must be formatted with a filesystem recognisable by the system.
  • Support for the filesystem must exist in the system; appropriate drivers must be installed.
  • And, so on…

What is the criteria used in deciding that “it doesn’t work”?

19

That would point to a hardware failure… Bad luck I guess - better luck next time.

In any case - it is not the operating system which fails - I have a load of different USB disk’s - they all connect without issues.

When they say it work with Apple and Android it will work with ANY Linux.

The person responding to your query does not know that Android is based on Linux and that macOS is a BSD *nix.

So don’t worry - you are making an issue where none is :slight_smile:

Be aware that FAT32 file-system has a 4G file-size limit and NTFS often causes trouble on Linux.

Best option is to ensure the device is formatted with exfat as it is an opensource standard which do not impose the 4G file-size limit.

The ultra simple way is to open a terminal

  1. list your devices
    lsblk -f
  2. attach the new device and list again
    lsblk -f
  3. Note the new device and verify how it is formatted
    NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL        UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                       
└─sda1      ext4   1.0                1f3d1a6e-b4b5-46da-909a-8a87a45dd18b  307,2G    17%
nvme0n1                                                                                   
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat   FAT32 EFI          2406-71DD                               1,9G     3% /efi
├─nvme0n1p2 ext4   1.0   system       cafce1fc-a404-48b9-b7e8-00ec59a4e2c0  539,2G    33% /
└─nvme0n1p3 swap   1     swap         35cfcba0-c1cc-42b1-8657-b4c4a4139201                [SWAP]
  4. If the FSTYPE column reads ntfs, THEN format the device (use the partition e.g. sda1)
    BE SURE TO USE THE CORRECT DEVICE
    sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sda1
20

That’s a question I have never asked. That I have never considered.

As long as they are the size I asked for, I buy them plug them in, open Gparted or KDE Partition Manager, and reformat them to ext4. and use them.

Never had a problem.

21

Spot on. Only likely trip point, really, is either a corrupt ntfs partition scheme or hardware issues.

22

The error was probably with me not formatting the drive to work in Manjaro. The drive was detected by the system, it just was not mounting.

Maybe it was a hardware failure. I had two LaCie externals that worked perfectly without any issues before the Canvio failed on me.

I have bought a LaCie external which again works flawlessly, no issues.

Right, OK. Thank you for the reassurance.

As I mentioned, my Smart TV only supports FAT32 and NTFS so exFAT is out of the question. I use the drive to stream family pictures and videos.

:+1:

The corrupt NTFS partition can fixed with a re-format as far as I know. Hardware issues are a different ball game.

Just for everyone, I have bought Toshiba Canvio Basics 4TB. I needed the LED indicator light and the Flex range did not have this. Plus, the Canvio Basics has a 4 year guarantee with Toshiba.