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Tagged: USB
This topic contains 510 replies, has 126 voices, and was last updated by 
Mike G 5 months, 3 weeks ago.
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2021/03/03 at 12:37 am #99461
Hmm has anybody managed to get a 1TB or larger SSD in an USB 3.1 drive box to work for multitracking?
I would like to use that on Concert Journeys to make some Live Recordings and it would be good to have 6-8 hours of Capacity in 32 Tracks because then i would not have to travel with a notebook or could leave the data on the recorder disk as a backup copy.
Tried a brand new Samsung 1TB NVME SSD in a USB 3.1 housing. The drive is working absolutely fine on the USB Port of my my ubuntu desktop, no lags, really fast.
The SQ6 recogized it on first time using. Then i tried to format it – and after that it wasn’t recognized any more. Just “Checking” forever, even several hours.
After repartitioning and formatting again with VFAT on Linux i got te mixer ro re-recognize it but trying to record gave a hangig error (just the recording hangs, not the Mixer) after some minutes. And after that the drive isn’t recognized anymore. On Linux i can see the filesystem is still there, just the dirty flag of filesystem was set.
Afer i tried to create a new DOS partition table with a primary DOS FAT32 Partition and format that with VFAT, the SQ6 seemed to recognize the Drive again. But as i tried to record on it, the recording hung again after some 5 Minutes with an endles “Error” that kept being there for hours. After Shutdown and Reboot of the Mixer, it was “Checking” the drive forever again.
Is there any drive size limit i hit or any known incompatibility with USB Drives that use NVME SSDs or with a special vendor of that external USB Disk boxes? Or did i just use the “wrong” drive vendor?
The Linux Kernel identifies the device as follows:
usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 82 using xhci_hcd usb 3-4: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=9210 usb 3-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 Product: RTL9210B-CG Manufacturer: Realtek SerialNumber: 012345679167 usb-storage 3-4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected scsi host20: usb-storage 3-4:1.0 scsi 23:0:0:0: Direct-Access Realtek RTL9210B NVME 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 sd 23:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0 sd 23:0:0:0: [sdf] 2000409264 512-byte logical blocks: (1.02 TB/954 GiB) sd 23:0:0:0: [sdf] Write Protect is off sd 23:0:0:0: [sdf] Mode Sense: 37 00 00 08 sd 23:0:0:0: [sdf] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA sd 23:0:0:0: [sdf] Attached SCSI disk2021/03/03 at 10:00 am #99480I am assuming you are running an SQ series desk? You might be best to post your question within the SQ users section as this is for the QU user, although I am sure that one of them may know the answer to your question.
2021/03/03 at 3:42 pm #99483As per my previous post (2020/11/06 at 2:16 pm#96159 ), you’ll see I have one of these SanDisk drives
working successfully with multi-track. Whilst this is only the 500 GB version, others have also had the 250 GB working so I think it reasonable to assume that the 1TB would also work although this is not guaranteed. Note also that this applies to the QU and not the SQ. I’d suggest a no risk strategy would be to get one from your favourite retailer, try it out and return if it doesn’t work.2021/03/03 at 8:00 pm #99491You might be best to post your question within the SQ users section as this is for the QU user
If that is the case, there is a wrong ling pinned in the SQ Forum. Although that looks intentional for me since both Mixers seem to work similar on that point.
2021/03/03 at 8:04 pm #99492It is completely unclear for me at the Moment if the Problem here is the drive or the NVME to USB Adapter in that Drive Box. The Realtek Chipset seems to belong to the Box.
OTOH since I can successfully record hours of 32 Tracks in 24/48 to that USB disk using a Notebook and Ardour even while streaming the Channels from SQ6 USB Port B and even over an USB 2.0 host, the broken part here from my point of view is clearly not the drive but the Mixing Desk.
2021/03/03 at 8:27 pm #99493@Dilettant
I would look at it as they are merely mutually incompatible; and the problem was at a meta level with defining USB and how it works with audio, along with how OEMs interpret the spec and actually conform to it. Worse, the OEMs do not always make the same product the same way, so the same brand and model number does not guarantee that two of them will both work.
2021/03/03 at 8:55 pm #99494I would look at it as they are merely mutually incompatible
I beg to differ.
That Disk is an USB Drive. It is reported as conforming to USB Mass Storage Standards by its Manufacturer and that was verified with 2 different Operating Systems. It can flawlessly be used on both without any problem for data storage. Any analyzing tool did not show up any violation of USB Standards by that disk up to now (and i would bet it even works on a Mac, on a *BSD Computer or on any other correctly implemented Device that can use USB Storage).
It is also clearly not too slow or in any other kind too restricted to do Multitracking with that amount of data, as that was proven by doing it on a DAW with a Notebook – and i have to state there: even with a SYNC Mount, e.g. no write Buffers on the OS Level for the Filesystem, and slow USB 2.0 connection.
So as far as we know there is absolutely nothing wrong with that disk. It is a perfectly working USB device. There is no evidence it has any product failure at all.
OTOH, A&H claims to be able to multitrack to USB2 Mass Storage devices in the Product Description. “USB”, not “something similar like USB”, “some weird subset of USB nobody really knows” or “USB Devices implementing a specific subset of USB”.
I am sure, they must even have certified their device to conform to USB Standards since if they didn’t it would not be allowed to them to use the USB Branding Marks and Logos for it by national and international law.
The USB Standard Specification was made to make shure, any correctly implemented USB device can work with any other correctly implemented class-compliant USB device. And that was verified in a broad manner of ways from formal analysis to practical tests – not least years of using working USB devices in the whole world. Such a thing as “mutual incompatibility” simply cannot exist on that by Definition. At least one of the communicating devices _is_ violating USB standards (maybe both) and if it does so, it _is_ a broken product. Period.
All propabilities we have up to now tend by far that the broken device is not the Disk.
2021/03/03 at 9:06 pm #99495Just one more point:
and the problem was at a meta level with defining USB and how it works with audio
No, it was not. The Problem here has absolutely nothing to do with USB Audio. We are talking about USB Mass Storage specifications here, nothing else.
The USB device used for SQ Drive (or Qu Drive) must not know anything about audio at all (no known USB thumb Drive implements the USB Audio subset as far as i know), it simple stores (or better: should store) Data into files. If that Data is audio, video or foot powder sales statistics makes no difference for that device. It is the mixer or any other Software accessing the files latger that interprets it as Audio, not the Stick and not USB.
2021/03/03 at 9:54 pm #99496Delettant
Read the USB web site and what they said about audio compatibility across the various versions.
You are clearly wrong with your interpretation that the standard is not a problem.Combine with their approach to standards for ensuring audio works well, along with how the OEMs build things and cut corners from the specs (saying they are compatible but do not see they conform 100%), along with the differences between the usb versions and you have too many chances for something to fail.
Add on top the way the chip makers do their thing and you get the mess we have with finding a usb device that works with the AH mixers.
I cannot speak to whether AH also cut corners or did things to contribute to the mess although I believe they said they did conform to the USB standard which takes us back to the standard being more than a person of interest in all this. Although corner cutting by chip makers and usb device OEMs is clearly contributing to the situation too.
2021/03/04 at 3:00 am #99506Read the USB web site and what they said about audio compatibility across the various versions.
I won’t. We are not talking about USB Audio here. SQ Drive is an USB Mass Storage Implementation so we have to talk about Mass Storage. There is absolutely nothing said about audio compatibility in the USB Mass Storage descriptions since that is about storing (any kind of) Data, not (explicitly) Audio.
2021/03/04 at 3:36 am #99508Sure sounds like you are talking about usb and audio to me.
Where you ship the audio to, and what you do with it, is not pertinent to the usb part working or not.You got any other reasons for your failures to record with usb devices? There are certainly other things besides the usb spec.
Whatever, the point is that not all usb devices will work. Even with the same make and model one could fail and one might work.2021/03/04 at 11:58 am #99517ure sounds like you are talking about usb and audio to me.
Not at all. We talk about Qu/SQ Drive, don’t we?
That means, we talk about storing Scene and Audio Track Data on an USB Storage device like a thumb drive, an usb disk or any other Mass Storage media connected via USB to a A&H Qu or SQ Series Mixer.
Absolutely none of these devices on the whole Planet implements USB Audio spcification which is defined as USB Device class 01h (Audio Interface) or 10h (Audio or Video Streaming device). You cannot buy any USB Disk or Stick working as USB Class 01h or 10h on the whole planet. Because that would not make any sense.
The only thing these devices can work as at all is USB Class 08h (Mass Storage). So if A&H wants to write anything on them at all, that and nothing other is what they have to implement.
Read the USB Specifications for USB devices of Class 08h. Show me a single sentence there that mentions audio in another meaning than “any data, for example audio”. Show a single function in that Standard that is made explicitly for Audio. Just try it. You won’t find one. None. Nada. Nothing.
The correct Specification is here:
https://www.usb.org/document-library/mass-storage-class-specification-overview-14Nevertheless it keeps an ugly protocol having some Subsets. For example, there are several sub protocols for storage called BOT and UASP. A&H could have decided to implement only BOT but that would be a bad Idea since BOT has limited transfer bandwidth by Definition.
They also could have implemented only a Subset of UAS, but then
Since there is no information about the implemented Subset, a customer may absolutely legitimately assume they made a complete implementation. If not, their Implementation is nothing other than broken, not “mutually incompatible”, just broken. Maybe incomplete, but that is just another word for broken.
2021/03/04 at 3:31 pm #99520Thanks for proving what I said.
USB is a big part of the problem.
How all the players implemented their part of the eventual USB device is part of the problem.
The Qu/SQ drive uses a USB device.Thanks for proving what I said.
2021/03/04 at 8:31 pm #99522USB is a big part of the problem.
How all the players implemented their part of the eventual USB device is part of the problem.
The Qu/SQ drive uses a USB deviceThat is a lame excuse, not more.
USB Storage Protocol is well documented and can be implemented absolutely without such an epic fail. The Linux kernel developers could do that, BSD Developers could do that, Mac Developers could do that, Windows developers could do that. There are plenty of obviously much better working USB Storage Host implemetations out there including car radios, photo cameras and even some audio recorders. And piles of free software that can be used for this.
So it _is_ possible to do that right. It has just not been done (yet) on the SQ Mixers.
2021/03/04 at 8:51 pm #99523@Dilettant
the documentation says you will have problems, if you actually understand what it really says.
when people do not conform to the documentation you can have bigger problems.Sorry but the mixer could be perfect and there could still be problems.
As I said, many of the players contribute to the current difficulties and the biggest problem is the USB consortium.Could AH have done a little better, for sure. But I do not blame them for the issues we have with usb.
It would be nice if they came clean about what they did and why we do have problems but I do not blame them for anything but making some bad management decisions on how to implement USB in their mixers.
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