
I’ve covered how to get the right type of storage adapter for your Raspberry Pi for years on this site and cataloged storage adapters that both work and don’t work with the Raspberry Pi. Over the years we’ve learned that many of these adapters can be “fixed” with a firmware update to work with the Raspberry Pi.
In this article I’ll put together an evolving list of firmware adapters that can be fixed with these updates from my own experience as well as comments people have left over the years!
Overview
The preferred and safest way to identify your device is by brand name. This will work if you have a “popular” or “name brand” storage adapter.
If you have a generic / unbranded adapter then the next best way is by chipset. We can identify your chipset by using the following command:
sudo lsusb
This yields the following result:
pi@pi:~ $ lsusb Bus 002 Device 002: ID 174c:55aa ASMedia Technology Inc. Name: ASM1051E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1053E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge, ASM1153E SATA 6Gb/s bridge Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04d9:0007 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2109:3431 VIA Labs, Inc. Hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Yours will look similar to mine. I’ve bolded the important line which is our storage adapter. The above result is for the StarTech 2.5″ SATA to USB 3.1 (USB312SAT3CB) adapter. This example is a name brand adapter that will be on the list but if it wasn’t the generic chipset would be the ASMedia ASM1153E chipset for this adapter. Other common chipsets include JMS-578, etc.
If you’re confused about which is which use this version of the command to get a lot more detail (including device properties that often make it much easier to identify):
sudo lsusb -v
This will yield something like this:
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 174c:55aa ASMedia Technology Inc. Name: ASM1051E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1053E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge, ASM1153E SATA 6Gb/s bridge Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 3.10 bDeviceClass 0 bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 9 idVendor 0x174c ASMedia Technology Inc. idProduct 0x55aa Name: ASM1051E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1053E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge, ASM1153E SATA 6Gb/s bridge bcdDevice 1.00 iManufacturer 2 asmedia iProduct 3 ASMT1051 iSerial 1 123456799FA6 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 0x0079 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0xc0 Self Powered MaxPower 0mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk-Only iInterface 0
The above example didn’t give us the name “StarTech” anywhere but it did give us some clues. This is identified as a “Mass Storage” interface class device which definitely narrows things down. Your other peripherals will show as the category they are from like mouse, keyboard, etc. You should be able to narrow things down by unplugging everything else from your Pi if you are still having trouble identifying which is which.
Many of these updates need to be applied using a Windows machine as that will be the only platform these updates will be offered on from their web site. Some manufacturers have update utilities for multiple platforms available but from what I’ve found if you’re lucky enough they offer them at all it will usually be for Windows.
Warning / Disclaimer
This is not an entirely risk free procedure. If something goes wrong during a firmware update it is possible to brick it. This doesn’t happen very often but understand it’s possible. If you lose power at the moment you are updating the firmware for example that could definitely do it.
There is less risk for the “branded” adapters as these are the manufacturer’s tools intended for the manufacturer’s devices. It’s as safe as it gets but even in these cases things can go wrong (like the examples I mentioned above). There is also some risk that even chipsets identifying as the same chip may have slight variations in how they are actually implemented or which revision they are.
Make sure you understand this is not a completely risk free procedure (and carries the same risk as firmware updates on any other device, and a little bit extra risk even for the generics since they may not have been intended for that exact device) before proceeding!
StarTech Adapters
StarTech 2.5″ SATA to USB 3.1 Adapter

The USB 3.1 variant of the StarTech 2.5″ SATA adapter works well with the Pi 4. The USB 3.0 variant doesn’t have firmware updates available and is not recommended.
Links: Amazon.com*, Amazon.ca*, Amazon.com.au*, Amazon.co.jp*, Amazon.co.uk*, Amazon.de*, Amazon.es*, Amazon.fr*, Amazon.it*, Amazon.nl*, Amazon.pl*, Amazon.se*, Amazon.sg*
There are a few different variants. Check the tag on your cable to see which exact model you have.
usb312sat3cb – USB 3.1 Gen2 Version
usb31csat3cb – USB 3.1 Gen1 Version
usb3s2sat3cb – USB 3.0 Version – No updates available
Click the “downloads” tab and choose “firmware.zip”. This must be ran on a Windows machine. It will update the firmware almost instantly when you launch the program with the adapter plugged in and say “SUCCESS – UNPLUG AND REPLUG THE DEVICE”.
Sabrent Adapters
Sabrent and Orico both have the worst track records for working storage adapters for the Pi. I don’t recommend them at all but they can sometimes be fixed.
The following Sabrent JMicron adapters can be updated with their official tool:
Important Note: After the update the Sabrent adapters often work but usually only with quirks mode enabled (see bottom Quirks section of article).
For Sabrent’s version of the JMicron firmware update tool: Sabrent JMicron Update Tool
EC-SNVE*
PSiler has reported that you can fix UAS support on the EC-SNVE* with a firmware update available at: Sabrent EC-SNVE Download Page
For the general Sabrent adapters firmware update list (check if your adapter is listed): Sabrent Firmware Update Download Page
Generic Adapters
Note with generic adapters there is some risk. These may not necessarily be by the same manufacturer of your device. It usually doesn’t matter as these all have the same storage controller but due to slight variations in the way some manufacturers implement this technology it’s possible it could cause an issue / brick it. Make sure you understand that there is some risk before proceeding!
JMicron JMS578 Firmware
This is a copy of the JMS578 firmware that has fixed this issue for many people (but not everyone) on the Raspberry Pi. You may still need to enable “quirks mode” (see quirks mode section) even with the updated firmware in some cases.
It’s a little bit trickier to use than some of the other ones but not too extraordinarily difficult. You will need the updater utility and the .bin file.
Here is the updater utility: ODroid – jms578fwupdater.tgz
Here is the JMS578 firmware update: ODroid – jms578_fw_update
And finally the how to use the updater utility / instructions here: ODroid Wiki – How to use jms578_fw_update
This thread is worth a read as well to see the different types of adapters/chipsets people tried with this and their different results: Raspberry Pi Forums – Topic 245931
Watch Out For Power Issues
If you are using a drive that has high power demands a common solution I’ve been recommending for years is to use a Sabrent powered USB hub to power the drive. This eliminates your Pi from having to use it’s own power to power the drive at all. This is often required for higher performance NVMe drives.

The Sabrent powered USB hub delivers a whopping 2.5A of dedicated power for your USB attached devices. This is almost as much as the Pi adapter itself is rated for (3.0A). It will easily power the most thirsty of setups such as NVMe enclosures.
Links: Amazon.com*, Amazon.ca*, Amazon.com.au*, Amazon.co.uk*, Amazon.es*, Amazon.it*, Amazon.nl*, Amazon.pl*, Amazon.se*
Note: Make sure Amazon doesn’t try to take you to the non-powered version and that it’s the one with the AC adapter that plugs in to provide extra power
Verify Drive Performance
You can make sure everything is running correctly (and as fast as it should be) by running my quick storage benchmark. You can run the benchmark with the following one-liner:
sudo curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheRemote/PiBenchmarks/master/Storage.sh | sudo bash
This will give you a score you can compare to the other Raspberry Pi Storage Benchmark results and make sure that you are getting an equivalent speed to your peers with the same device!
Benchmarking / Testing Storage
If you want to verify your drive’s performance you may want to run my storage benchmark with:
sudo curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheRemote/PiBenchmarks/master/Storage.sh | sudo bash
If you search for the model of your drive on Pi Benchmarks you can compare your score with others and make sure the drive is performing correctly!
Fix (some) USB Adapter Problems Using Quirks
Some adapters can be made to work by using USB quirks to disable UAS mode on the drive. This lowers performance, but it’s still much faster than a SD card and your adapter won’t go to waste. Some adapters also require it even with the updated firmware!
To find out the quirks we need to find the device ID string for your adapter and then add an entry to cmdline.txt telling the kernel to apply them on boot.
Find Your Adapter
To apply the quirks we first need to get the adapter id. We will use the sudo lsusb command:
$ sudo lsusb Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 002: ID 174c:55aa ASMedia Technology Inc. Name: ASM1051E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1053E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge, ASM1153E SATA 6Gb/s bridge Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2109:3431 VIA Labs, Inc. Hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
On line 2 we can see my ASM1051E SATA 6Gb/s bridge adapter (it’s the known working StarTech.com 2.5″ SATA to USB 3.0* adapter). You will see something very similar to mine when you run the command and it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out which device it is. If you need more information add a -v switch to make the command sudo lsusb -v. This can sometimes add some additional details to make it easier to figure out which one is your adapter.
If you’re still not sure, we have another command that between the two that can narrow things down. Type / paste the following:
sudo dmesg | grep usb [0.828535] usb usb3: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002, bcdDevice= 4.19 [0.828568] usb usb3: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1 [0.828597] usb usb3: Product: DWC OTG Controller [0.828620] usb usb3: Manufacturer: Linux 4.19.75-v7l+ dwc_otg_hcd [0.828644] usb usb3: SerialNumber: fe980000.usb [0.830051] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas [0.830182] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage [0.836488] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid [0.836511] usbhid: USB HID core driver [0.971598] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd [1.154217] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=2109, idProduct=3431, bcdDevice= 4.20 [1.154254] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=1, SerialNumber=0 [1.154281] usb 1-1: Product: USB2.0 Hub [1.301989] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed Gen 1 USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd [1.332965] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=174c, idProduct=55aa, bcdDevice= 1.00 [1.332999] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1 [1.333026] usb 2-1: Product: ASM105x [1.333048] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: ASMT [1.333071] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 123456789B79F
This is the dmesg log showing the hardware detection as hardware is activated on the Pi. If your log is really long you can generate fresh entries by just unplugging a device and plugging it back in and running the command again. Here we can clearly see that the ASM105x is what our StarTech adapter is being detected as.
Now we can go back to our first lsusb command and we want the 8 characters from the ID field that comes right after the Device:
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 174c:55aa ASMedia Technology Inc. Name: ASM1051E SATA 6Gb/s bridge
Our adapter’s ID is: 174c:55aa
Applying Quirks
To apply the quirks to our USB adapter we are going to edit /boot/cmdline.txt. Type:
sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt
We are going to add the following entry into the very front of cmdline.txt:
usb-storage.quirks=XXXX:XXXX:u
In place of the X’s above you will put in your adapter’s ID that we got before. With the example commands I gave above mine would look like this: usb-storage.quirks=174c:55aa:u. After this my cmdline.txt looks like this (everything should be one continuous line, no line breaks!):
usb-storage.quirks=174c:55aa:u console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=PARTUUID=d34db33f-02 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait
Now reboot the Pi. If the Pi fails to boot you can plug the SD card into the computer and go to /boot/cmdline.txt and undo the change we did so you can boot back in with your SD card.
Verifying Quirks
Once you have rebooted after changing cmdline.txt we can verify the quirks have been applied by doing another dmesg | grep usb command:
sudo dmesg | grep usb [1.332924] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=174c, idProduct=55aa, bcdDevice= 1.00 [1.332957] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1 [1.332983] usb 2-1: Product: ASM105x [1.333006] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: ASMT [1.333028] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 123456789B79F [1.335967] usb 2-1: UAS is blacklisted for this device, using usb-storage instead [1.336071] usb 2-1: UAS is blacklisted for this device, using usb-storage instead [1.336103] usb-storage 2-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected [1.336479] usb-storage 2-1:1.0: Quirks match for vid 174c pid 55aa: c00000 [1.336611] scsi host0: usb-storage 2-1:1.0
This time we can see in dmesg that UAS was blacklisted for the device and it has loaded with the usb-storage driver instead. This driver tends to be more compatible with the “problematic adapters” but the performance is usually significantly lower. It’s definitely worth a try though as some adapters do better with the quirks performance-wise. The only way to know for sure is to run a benchmark (see “Verify Drive Performance” section).
Other Resources
For the CM4 (Compute Module 4) check out Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and using real PCI-Express/NVMe on the Pi
To find out where to get the 64 bit Raspberry Pi OS beta check out my Where to get 64 bit Raspberry Pi OS article here
If you are looking for storage adapters or the best SSDs to use for Raspberry Pi my Best Storage Adapters / SSDs for the Pi 4 / 400 guide should be able to be of some assistance
So I ran into issues with the USB312SAT3CB cable from startech. When using this cable my raspberry pi started rebooting when lots of data was being written. I could never really find why and never really found a clear error message. I did however think I found a solution. I found that the raspberry pi also can update the Raspberry Pi OS kernel and VideoCore firmware using the
sudo rpi-update
. I’m only a few days in but I haven’t had any issues. If anybody runs into this issue try it out and let me know if it fixes the problem for you.Hey TechSpartan,
Excellent comment and tip! Yes, I have heard of the Raspberry Pi firmware updates fixing these types of issues before. I think it’s worth it for others having issues as well!
UGREEN USB 3.0 to SATA Adapter, 2.5 Hard Drive Reader. Worked on USB 2 but not USB 3. Quirks made no difference.
UGREEN SATA to USB C Adapter Cable. Worked on USB 2 and USB3, no quirks required. USB 3 read write tests were not fast. 33MB/s for both. Benchmark score 2603.
SABRENT SATA to USB C 3.2X2, SSD HDD Hard Drive Adapter. Worked on USB 2 and USB3, no quirks required. USB read & write speeds c.330MB/s. Benchmark score 8818.
Excellent, thanks for the report James!
After buying three of these for my RPI4s:
USB 3.1 to 2.5″ SATA Hard Drive Adapter – USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps with UASP External HDD/SSD Storage Converter
They seem to work ok, however the drive becomes randomly disconnected from the OS. lsusb -t yields a Startech device. I attempted to apply the firmware on Startech’s website however, it says “Incorrect configuration”. Seems that when I revert back to USB2.0 all is stable.
Hey Curtis,
They sound fake to be honest with you. The download page for the USB312SAT3CB firmware is located here. You shouldn’t need it though. The stock firmware works just fine on this adapter.
I would look very closely at your tag and make sure it says USB312SAT3CB. Everyone who has had this issue actually ended up buying the USB3S2SAT3CB (the cheap one that sucks). There are no firmware updates available for that adapter and it’s known to have issues.
It’s also possible you have a fake. StarTech gear is widely faked. Did you get it from Amazon? If it’s from AliExpress it’s definitely fake and lots of people have got fake ones from AliExpress and had the same issues. The firmware tool not identifying your adapter is a pretty big red flag. If it was $10-15 it’s not the right one. The real one is $18 on Amazon and $21 directly from StarTech. If you paid less than that then I guarantee it’s not real.
Hopefully that helps!
Hi James, this is the exact one I bought.
It does have the proper tag on it as you list above so I am not sure why it is having issues. So far when I plugged them into USB2.0 ports they have been stable (at the lower speed). Of the list of known working adapters would would be a recommended second choice?
Curtis
Hey Curtis,
Do you have any other drives to try with it? I almost wonder if it’s a firmware issue with the drive. There are sometimes firmware updates available that can take care of issues like this.
Hopefully that helps!