Raspberry Pi 4 Issues With Formatting SSD as Ext4

[nickhod]

I have a 256GB Samsung SSD installed in a Sabrent USB 3 enclosure, plugged into one of the Raspberry Pi's USB3 ports.
I'm using the Raspberry Pi 4 offical power supply.
I have nothing else in the USB ports.

The drive works fine on a desktop PC with an NTFS partition.
The problems start when I try to delete the NTFS partition, create a new one and format it as Ext4.

Firstly, fdisk -l hangs for 30 seconds or more before it lists /dev/sda. Running

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sudo fdisk /dev/sda
d
n [...]
w

Does work and a new partition is created (eventually, it seems really slow).
fdisk -l is even slower now, maybe 1 minute to return.
I then try to format with

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sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

and it hangs on

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Creating journal (262144 blocks):

I've left it running for 5 hours (!). The disk light is still flashing however.
It's like the Pi can only read / write to the disk super slowly.
Anyone have any ideas?

[nickhod]

I'm beginning to think that the USB 2.5" drive enclosure I'm using isn't compatible with the Pi.

Does anyone have any current recommendations of ones that are compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4?

I've seen "ELUTENG USB3" mentioned several times, but apparently the newer version of that struggles.

I didn't realise the the Pi was so fussy about the make and model of these.

[rpdom]

I believe there are a few issues with timings or something on the USB3 ports with storage devices at the moment.

Can you try the drive in one of the USB2 ports to see if that makes a difference.

[LTolledo]

My RPi3B is booting from a 60GB cheapo SSD connected via Eluteng Blue SATA to USB3.0 adapter cable (the one that was reported to be having some problems)...

well.... been using the Eluteng blue for quite some time now.. .more than 3 months perhaps... and still haven't given me problems

the SSD is, of course, using EXT4 format for the root partition (... most of us know that....)

Have another one of those Eluteng Blue on my RPi2BNAS with 4TB 2.5" HDD, HDD is also formatted to EXT4..... running smoothly......

cant do HDD (and other) test on an RPi4B....yet... as the units are "under construction"....at the moment.....

[Gomoto]

I am using a sabrent adapter without problems. Try USB 2.0 before buying another adaptor. If it works with USB 2.0 and not with USB 3.0 and you are daring enough to do an unrecommended rpi-update you could post if this solves the problem, like it did it for me or if it bricked your raspberry pi if it goes wrong

[nickhod]

After some trial and error:

USB 3 + Sabrent Enclosure [1]: Didn't work as described above
USB 2 + Sabrent Enclosure: Drive not even recognised

USB 3 + Sabrent Adapter [2]: Error on format rather than hang
USB 2 + Sabrent Adapter: Seems to work fine

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1
[2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01 ... UTF8&psc=1

Can't help but feel that the Pi 4 is rushed to market if the USB3 is this flaky with the most common SSD adapters out there.
On top of that my Pi 4 is running hotter than the sun.

[belzeb78]

Hi,

I exactly have the same problem with my SSD and the Sabrent adapter...

Thanks for the type I'll try on usb2...

I hope an update will solve it...

Edit: It work fine on usb2... Wait the update and see...