9.3 Replace failed disk on N54L

[ulus]

Hello,

first of all I'm new to FreeNAS. Looking for a last bastion backup (backup of backup) solution I decided to give it a try.
So I bought a N54L for testing purposes, installed 16GB RAM, applied the BIOS Patch, installed FreeNAS on a Kingston 16GB USB.
Three old fashioned 250GB SATA-Drives were moved to a RAID-Z1 pool.
Created a dataset, a CIFS-Share, set permissons, copied some files -> works as designed.
So next step was to check what happend if a drive fails during operation.
Therefore I remove the ada2 device when the system was powered on.
Of course the volume was shown as gegraded.
So I reconnected the drive without deleting data or reinitialize the drive.
And now the odyssey starts.
In Storage->Volumes->tank (name of the pool)->Volume Status (right buttom on bottom bar)
the working drives are shown as ada1p2 and ada0p2.
The pulled and reinserted drive is shown as 7850339049424108492
So I checked it (highlighted) and pressed the replace buttom.
In the appering window I can't select a member disk because the drop down field is empty.
Googling around there's no working method I could find to replace the failed disk.
So after reboot the pool was healed automatically (okay, but reboot is in normal operation not an option)
Next check. Now I tried to use a new disk not reinserting the old drive.
Pulled the drive during operation -> not able to replace.
After reboot the disk is replaceable as expected!
So there are some questions:
Is there a standard procedure to replace disk if they fail during operation?
Especially a way to rescan the drives and creating device files?
Are the N54L devices really hot plugable when the BIOS-Patch is installed which if not would lead to an other HW setup?
Any help appreciated

Regards
Gerd

 

[SweetAndLow]

http://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_storage.html#replacing-a-failed-drivereplacing-a-failed-drive

Here is the procedure and while you are there read that entire manual.

 

[ulus]

SweetandLow,

thx.
You noticed I googled already and of course found the manual? It's nice and helpfull as well.
But what to do if things don't work as described.
Is it a problem with the N54L or FreeNAS?

Regards

 

[ulus]

Next test: pull disk ada4 during write operation is in progress (copy 10GB ISO images) on 4 drive RAID-Z1 pool
Result: Lost the pool. 2 drives are unavailable and not replaceable.
After minutes I tried to reboot by GUI -> Failed
Shutdown stops with "some processes would not die"
This could become a nightmare
So is N54L or FreeNAS failing?

Regards

 

[SweetAndLow]

In your first post you tried to hot swap which your hardware probably doesn't support so that is why a reboot fixed things.

In your most recent test I have a feeling you bumped something causing two drives to become disconnected. You can look at connected drives with 'camcontrol devlist' I think.

 

[ulus]

SweetandLow

Thx again.
Pull and reinsert the disk was done carefully to avoid influence to the very next SATA port.
Tottering the disks is no problem. They stay online.
One of my concerns is indeed if the BIOS-Patch enables a hot swap feature to the device.
I'm in doubt it does.
The N54L is brand new and in standard configuration it doesn't support hot plug.
Just to let you know. I have some experience with HP Proliant and Supermicro equipment.
But with Proliant MicroServer.

Regards