Cannot format hard drive

[David Henrickson]

Hello everyone.

Below I have a few photos. One of which is my specs that are always asked for.

Anyways, I have a hard drive that will NOT format/wipe. I'm new to using FreeNAS (started last August of 2018?) so I am not familiar with all of the shell codes that everyone uses. I try to use the GUI, as that is what it is intended for. If the shell codes work and the GUI doesn't....well...in my eyes there is an issue with FreeNAS that needs to be worked on, as its broken. So, with that stated. I cannot get this to format. I bought two of the same hard drives (I'm going to state that they were formatted to 520 first and I know I need them as 512 (NetAPP)). I got one formatted and working just fine...the other kicks an error in FreeNAS. Suggestions? If I have to use the shell, I will, but since someone thought it was a good idea to erase the "paste" function on the last update, I am not going to be thrilled to do it that way. All help would be greatly appreciated. I KNOW other people have had this issue before, so I know this thread should be able to help others that follow or gave up, like I almost have.

Thank you again!

DJ

 

[Chris Moore]

One of which is my specs that are always asked for.

The screen shot you included has NOTHING to do with, "specs". The information required by the:

Forum Guidelines
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/forum-guidelines.45124/

Hardware information is extremely important when diagnosing problems. This includes:

• motherboard make and model
• CPU make and model
• RAM quantity
• hard drives, quantity, model numbers, and RAID configuration
• hard disk controllers
• network cards

What you provided does not include the brand (make) or model number of the system board.
It does not include the brand and model number of the hard drives installed
You have not included information on the drive controller you are using to connect to the drives.
The images attached do not answer any of these questions. Questions that forum members should NOT need to ask because you are supposed to read the rules before posting.

well...in my eyes there is an issue with FreeNAS that needs to be worked on, as its broken

The new GUI (a full re-write) that you are using was just released on December 6th. There is a possibility that features are still broken. That is what the bug reporting system is for:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/system.html#support

they were formatted to 520 first and I know I need them as 512 (NetAPP)). I got one formatted and working just fine...the other kicks an error in FreeNAS. Suggestions?

Make sure it is properly converted from 520 to 512 or it will not work. That is something that must be done at a command prompt. There is no GUI interface for that bit of hacking.

If I have to use the shell, I will, but since someone thought it was a good idea to erase the "paste" function on the last update, I am not going to be thrilled to do it that way.

You need to be able to SSH in to a terminal on your FreeNAS system. There are many common management tasks that are done from a terminal.
Here is a guide (use the legacy GUI) :

Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS Configuration Guide
https://www.familybrown.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fester:intro

or gave up, like I almost have.

Sounds like the trouble you are having is because of some hard drives that were formatted for something else. There are plenty of guides on the internet for how to reformat those, but that is really nothing to do with FreeNAS. We suggest using new drives and the most often suggested model is Western Digital Red NAS drives. When you purchase used drives, sometimes you get a packet of misery. I know, I built my first several home NAS systems with eBay sourced used drives. It was not until January of 2018 that I was able to purchase my first full set of new drives.

 

[David Henrickson]

The screen shot you included has NOTHING to do with, "specs". The information required by the:

Forum Guidelines
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/forum-guidelines.45124/


What you provided does not include the brand (make) or model number of the system board.
It does not include the brand and model number of the hard drives installed
You have not included information on the drive controller you are using to connect to the drives.
The images attached do not answer any of these questions. Questions that forum members should NOT need to ask because you are supposed to read the rules before posting.

The new GUI (a full re-write) that you are using was just released on December 6th. There is a possibility that features are still broken. That is what the bug reporting system is for:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/system.html#support

Make sure it is properly converted from 520 to 512 or it will not work. That is something that must be done at a command prompt. There is no GUI interface for that bit of hacking.

You need to be able to SSH in to a terminal on your FreeNAS system. There are many common management tasks that are done from a terminal.
Here is a guide (use the legacy GUI) :

Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS Configuration Guide
https://www.familybrown.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fester:intro

Sounds like the trouble you are having is because of some hard drives that were formatted for something else. There are plenty of guides on the internet for how to reformat those, but that is really nothing to do with FreeNAS. We suggest using new drives and the most often suggested model is Western Digital Red NAS drives. When you purchase used drives, sometimes you get a packet of misery. I know, I built my first several home NAS systems with eBay sourced used drives. It was not until January of 2018 that I was able to purchase my first full set of new drives.
View attachment 29100

A 25 pack!? Holy expensive, Batman!

I have a Dell T610. So, no idea what the motherboard is. Its in a Dell.
Operating system stored on two 2.5" Samsung Evo 860's 250Gb (FreeNAS fried 6 USB drives in 6 months, screw the old "suggestions", I went with hard drives like more people are apparently doing due to the same issue)
Jails setup in a Raid 1 with two 2.5" Samsung Evo 860's 500Gb
Drive controller is (2) completely updated LSI SAS 9211-8i set to IT mode. Both run other drives just fine installed.
The hard drives are a mixture. I ONLY use SAS drives, as that is what was suggested from the hours of research I did on that. The benefits of SAS just out weigh the cheapness of SATA hard drives, including WD Red drives, of which I would have loved to put in the system; however, WD red does not come in SAS. So I have HGST (7K6000) enterprise and Seagate (ST4000NM0033 ) Enterprise SAS drives at 4TB each.
I have a STRONG feeling that the hard drive in question is in fact sector'd into 520 size. I know the other one that came with it was, and I seemed to have changed that one, but this one will not budge. I was hoping FreeNAS the program had some sort of utility to....well....really get into the management of the hard drives and "prep" it, if you will, for flawless FreeNAS usage. I know it isn't "designed" to do that, but figured that would be an above and beyond system integration tool that would seem very useful...haha, as I could use that currently.

 

[Chris Moore]

A 25 pack!? Holy expensive, Batman!

https://www.provantage.com/seagate-st4000dm004-25pk~7SEGE1J6.htm

They changed the product since I bought it. The ones I bought were ST4000DM000 and were NOT using SMR, but these ST4000DM004 are using SMR and I bought three of them (ST4000DM004) for spares, and during testing, they don't work very well. Significantly slower in overall performance.
I don't recommend them.

This is the model drive that I bought. I have 24 of them running between my servers at home:
https://www.amazon.in/Seagate-Desktop-Internal-1-17934-kilogram/dp/B00B99JU4S
Working great for me.

 

[Chris Moore]

FreeNAS fried 6 USB drives in 6 months, screw the old "suggestions", I went with hard drives like more people are apparently doing due to the same issue

This is the reason I have been using 2.5" mechanical hard drives for around four years now and I have been trying to push it to other FreeNAS users because the USB drives are just not worth the pain.

I ONLY use SAS drives, as that is what was suggested from the hours of research I did on that.

I have servers at work where I am running hundreds of SATA drives.
Not sure where that came from. SAS drives are considered better in some circumstances, but for most uses I find SATA drives connected to a SAS HBA to be more than satisfactory at a better price point and SATA drives give better SMART data to monitor the health of the drive. The only advantage of SAS drives is if you are doing multipath SAS infrastructure. Just from what I have seen over the last decade or so.

The benefits of SAS just out weigh the cheapness of SATA hard drives

What benefit, exactly? It is what it is though, if SAS drives are what you have, that is what you have.

ST4000NM0033

https://www.seagate.com/www-content...tellation-es-3-data-sheet-ds1769-1-1210us.pdf
That is a single port drive interface, so it doesn't do multipath at the drive controller like the ST4000NM0023 does.

HGST (7K6000)

https://documents.westerndigital.co...r-sata-series/data-sheet-ultrastar-7k6000.pdf
As it turns out, that 7K6000, is only part of the model number information. Here are some examples: HUS7260xxAL421y, HUS7260xxAL521y, HUS7260xxALS21y
It doesn't say in the spec sheet that it is dual-port, so I wouldn't think it is. That is a feature that they are all too happy to talk about and charge extra for when you are buying new drives. Also, if you run down the specs on the sheet, you will see that almost everything is identical between the SAS model and the SATA model and this isn't unique to this model, here is another spec sheet to compare:
https://documents.westerndigital.co...r-sata-series/data-sheet-ultrastar-7k3000.pdf

I have a STRONG feeling that the hard drive in question is in fact sector'd into 520 size. I know the other one that came with it was, and I seemed to have changed that one, but this one will not budge.

I agree with that. The drives that are sold for use in NetAPP systems (and some others) often even have special firmware. It can be difficult to overcome and many people have turned around and sold the drives on eBay rather than continue to struggle with trying to convert them.

I know it isn't "designed" to do that, but figured that would be an above and beyond system integration tool that would seem very useful

If you look at this forum post from January:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community...ion-es-3-to-512-byte-blocks.55159/post-507152
You will see the command, and it is available in the FreeNAS operating system, but it is done from the command line, not from the GUI, because it is not a common thing and it is really more for people that are hacking something to begin with, not so much a normal thing that the average user is going to want or need.

as I could use that currently.

Is that helpful? Just configure something like PuTTY so you can have a SSH terminal to your NAS. I know, it isn't GUI, but there are a lot of more powerful things you can do with the NAS once you start using that, like these scripts:

Github repository for FreeNAS scripts, including disk burnin
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...for-freenas-scripts-including-disk-burnin.28/

or these commands:

Useful Commands
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/useful-commands.30314/#post-195192

It is a common thing to need to do something at the command line for configuration, testing and troubleshooting when something doesn't work. As much as FreeNAS can be an appliance for a basic user, many advanced features are accessed by command line including some of the more powerful disk management tasks.

 

[David Henrickson]

View attachment 29108
https://www.provantage.com/seagate-st4000dm004-25pk~7SEGE1J6.htm

They changed the product since I bought it. The ones I bought were ST4000DM000 and were NOT using SMR, but these ST4000DM004 are using SMR and I bought three of them (ST4000DM004) for spares, and during testing, they don't work very well. Significantly slower in overall performance.
I don't recommend them.

This is the model drive that I bought. I have 24 of them running in my between my servers:
https://www.amazon.in/Seagate-Desktop-Internal-1-17934-kilogram/dp/B00B99JU4S
Working great for me.

Got a little money to burn? Holy smokes....that would pay off ONE of my student loans

 

[David Henrickson]

This is the reason I have been using 2.5" mechanical hard drives for around four years now and I have been trying to push it to other FreeNAS users because the USB drives are just not worth the pain.
I have servers at work where I am running hundreds of SATA drives.
Not sure where that came from. SAS drives are considered better in some circumstances, but for most uses I find SATA drives connected to a SAS HBA to be more than satisfactory at a better price point and SATA drives give better SMART data to monitor the health of the drive. The only advantage of SAS drives is if you are doing multipath SAS infrastructure. Just from what I have seen over the last decade or so.

What benefit, exactly? It is what it is though, if SAS drives are what you have, that is what you have.

https://www.seagate.com/www-content...tellation-es-3-data-sheet-ds1769-1-1210us.pdf
That is a single port drive interface, so it doesn't do multipath at the drive controller like the ST4000NM0023 does.

https://documents.westerndigital.co...r-sata-series/data-sheet-ultrastar-7k6000.pdf
As it turns out, that 7K6000, is only part of the model number information. Here are some examples: HUS7260xxAL421y, HUS7260xxAL521y, HUS7260xxALS21y
It doesn't say in the spec sheet that it is dual-port, so I wouldn't think it is. That is a feature that they are all too happy to talk about and charge extra for when you are buying new drives. Also, if you run down the specs on the sheet, you will see that almost everything is identical between the SAS model and the SATA model and this isn't unique to this model, here is another spec sheet to compare:
https://documents.westerndigital.co...r-sata-series/data-sheet-ultrastar-7k3000.pdf

I agree with that. The drives that are sold for use in NetAPP systems (and some others) often even have special firmware. It can be difficult to overcome and many people have turned around and sold the drives on eBay rather than continue to struggle with trying to convert them.

If you look at this forum post from January:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community...ion-es-3-to-512-byte-blocks.55159/post-507152
You will see the command, and it is available in the FreeNAS operating system, but it is done from the command line, not from the GUI, because it is not a common thing and it is really more for people that are hacking something to begin with, not so much a normal thing that the average user is going to want or need.

Is that helpful? Just configure something like PuTTY so you can have a SSH terminal to your NAS. I know, it isn't GUI, but there are a lot of more powerful things you can do with the NAS once you start using that, like these scripts:

Github repository for FreeNAS scripts, including disk burnin
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...for-freenas-scripts-including-disk-burnin.28/

or these commands:

Useful Commands
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/useful-commands.30314/#post-195192

It is a common thing to need to do something at the command line for configuration, testing and troubleshooting when something doesn't work. As much as FreeNAS can be an appliance for a basic user, many advanced features are accessed by command line including some of the more powerful disk management tasks.

Wow...you are just FULL of useful information. I must have "hacked" the other NetAPP hard drive right, but this one is being a pain in the keester. I will continue to keep monkeying with it, as one, it gives me something to do other than taxes and two, I enjoy the speed and overall usage of the one I DID get to convert over. Have had zero issues with it thus far. I like the Hard Error rate of SAS over SATA, negligible, but still something I've considered. I just really don't want to risk anything, granted, I know you'll say "backups, backups, ZFS2 is not a backup" I just want to have that extra "nudge" of confidence that I can get my files working and another hard drive installed before hopefully another one doesn't crash, too. SAS just has a much better chance of making it out of a rebuild unscathed from what I have read. By like 100 times better odds.

Yeah, no more USB for that. Next project is PFsense, of which I will most likely use USB to setup, but I'm sure I'll install another array inside for it to run on and cache to. Separate box. Just won a R210ii with a E3-1280v2 for $85 with shipping and iDRAC. Talk about computer luck there. I should go buy a lottery ticket. Haha...so I can win and buy a box of 25 like you did.

I have Putty, but only because I read another forum uses it and I figured what the hey...but I just don't know how to use it, so thanks for that link. I see the "bug report" you mentioned and know OF them...but to be honest, I have no idea how to submit it nor follow up with things like that. So, as a basic user, I normally post on the forum and hopefully an experienced person would state to submit a bug or not based off of my issue. Usually, by the time I can test the issue or notice the issue, someone has already submitted a bug report and I'd rather not get yelled at for submitting a bug a "3rd" time and I should have read the 1000s of bug reports to see if it was already submitted. Just my thing, I guess.

I appreciate your help and as soon as I get home (F tax season..that's all I have to say on that one) I will try the Putty SSH system and maybe give linux live a go to format it if Putty fails and Shell fails again.

 

[Chris Moore]

Got a little money to burn? Holy smokes....that would pay off ONE of my student loans

Paid for it with part of my income tax refund last year. It is not uncommon for me to get $9k or more back from the fed.

 

[David Henrickson]

ah...you have kids, too.

Or...you claim single and zero and REALLY get your net paycheck cut back for your "forced federal savings" account with no interest. lol

 

[David Henrickson]

Paid for it with part of my income tax refund last year. It is not uncommon for me to get $9k or more back from the fed.

How did you add that "Emily-NAS" button to your posts? Now THATS a MUCH faster get around for that " what equipment do you have" request.

 

[Chris Moore]

Wow...you are just FULL of useful information

That might be part of the reason they made me a Moderator.

ah...you have kids, too.

Three

How did you add that "Emily-NAS" button to your posts? Now THATS a MUCH faster get around for that " what equipment do you have" request.

Just keep in mind that anyone looking at the forum on a mobile device (tablet or phone) will not be able to see anything in your signature, so don't be difficult if they ask.

Here is the answer:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/help/bb-codes/

It is the one for SPOILER about half way down the page.

 

[David Henrickson]

That might be part of the reason they made me a Moderator.

Three

Just keep in mind that anyone looking at the forum on a mobile device (tablet or phone) will not be able to see anything in your signature, so don't be difficult if they ask.

Here is the answer:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/help/bb-codes/

It is the one for SPOILER about half way down the page.

Yeah, I think when I started you were not a Moderator, but you def had the most posts on everything I was looking at. I started last....August 2018 I think? I have 2 kids.
I take it you are in computers for a living then? I'll not be difficult when people ask, I'm never anyway, I just come off as direct. Maybe I should add a crap ton of emoji's so people understand better?

 

[Chris Moore]

I take it you are in computers for a living then?

Yes. I have a bunch of Windows desktops and laptops I support in addition to the storage I manage for the division of the organization where I work.

 

[Chris Moore]

I see the "bug report" you mentioned and know OF them...but to be honest, I have no idea how to submit it nor follow up with things like that.

I don't recall linking you to anything about a bug report. Although I did give you several links. If you have questions about how to configure access to the terminal, I think it is covered in this guide:

Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS Configuration Guide
https://www.familybrown.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fester:intro