Errors during file transfer

[Zaaphod]

It does seem to be happening to all 3 hard drives. I can try a different power supply pretty easily, so I will try that first.

The firmware for my HBA seems to be more difficult... I have 20.00.00.00 installed that supermicro e-mailed to me, but when I tried to see if they would send me 20.00.04.00, I got a response, all we have for that motherboard is V19, and we don't know how you even got 20.00.00.00 Strange... 20.00.04.00 for that other board would not install correctly, but I noticed that it was dated 2014, I'm not sure why it's still not available for my motherboard in the downloads area yet. I'm going to see if I can dig up the email where they sent me 20.00.00.00 and perhaps that will have the name of the right person to talk to about it.

The only other possibility none of this can be resolved, is that it's a hard ware issue with my motherboard. I like that motherboard because it has 16 SATA III / SAS ports on it, lots of room for expansion... but it seems the controller that makes this happen is also the thing that is very difficult to keep current, so maybe it's not worth it when I'm nowhere near needing that many ports.... so here's a question:

I have the motherboard for my ESXi Server here, it's not in production so I could use it as a test. It's also a supermicro motherboard, but not the same model.. this one has lots of LAN ports, but not so many hard drive ports. I don't think it even has a SAS controller on it, but it does have 6 SATAIII ports on it and it does have ECC RAM installed. Since my drives are all SATA III, not SAS, I'm wondering if I should just switch to a motherboard without SAS capability and do away with the HBA firmware issue altogether.

anyway - for testing purposes... Can I just switch motherboards (to a different model)... just move my drives and USB Boot stick to the other system.. or would I need to re-install FreeNAS on the other motherboard then somehow import my data structure?

 

[anodos]

It does seem to be happening to all 3 hard drives. I can try a different power supply pretty easily, so I will try that first.

The firmware for my HBA seems to be more difficult... I have 20.00.00.00 installed that supermicro e-mailed to me, but when I tried to see if they would send me 20.00.04.00, I got a response, all we have for that motherboard is V19, and we don't know how you even got 20.00.00.00 Strange... 20.00.04.00 for that other board would not install correctly, but I noticed that it was dated 2014, I'm not sure why it's still not available for my motherboard in the downloads area yet. I'm going to see if I can dig up the email where they sent me 20.00.00.00 and perhaps that will have the name of the right person to talk to about it.

The only other possibility none of this can be resolved, is that it's a hard ware issue with my motherboard. I like that motherboard because it has 16 SATA III / SAS ports on it, lots of room for expansion... but it seems the controller that makes this happen is also the thing that is very difficult to keep current, so maybe it's not worth it when I'm nowhere near needing that many ports.... so here's a question:

I have the motherboard for my ESXi Server here, it's not in production so I could use it as a test. It's also a supermicro motherboard, but not the same model.. this one has lots of LAN ports, but not so many hard drive ports. I don't think it even has a SAS controller on it, but it does have 6 SATAIII ports on it and it does have ECC RAM installed. Since my drives are all SATA III, not SAS, I'm wondering if I should just switch to a motherboard without SAS capability and do away with the HBA firmware issue altogether.

anyway - for testing purposes... Can I just switch motherboards (to a different model)... just move my drives and USB Boot stick to the other system.. or would I need to re-install FreeNAS on the other motherboard then somehow import my data structure?

You won't need to reinstall.

 

[Zaaphod]

Is there a way to run SMART tests on my ESXi server while it's running? I'm just thinking I should see if that one has been getting any errors that I don't even know about

 

[Bidule0hm]

Yes, just run the tests :)

 

[Zaaphod]

Well here's what I'm finding out...

I tried a new power supply: get instant CRC errors on read
Tried moving drives to different ports: get instant CRC errors on read
Tried different SATA cables again: get instant CRC errors on read
Switched nothing but the motherboard, used the original power supply, RAM, cables, drives, and USB stick: So far (over 30 minutes) no CRC errors

So.... this leaves me with either a defect on the motherboard, or it's the HBA firmware version being 20.00.00.00 instead of 20.00.04.00

 

[Mirfster]

So.... this leaves me with either a defect on the motherboard, or it's the HBA firmware version being 20.00.00.00 instead of 20.00.04.00

Well, you are narrowing it down. :)

 

[anodos]

Well, you are narrowing it down. :)

Well, if he can't reflash the HBA then he's narrowed it down to the motherboard or the motherboard.

 

[Mirfster]

Well, if he can't reflash the HBA then he's narrowed it down to the motherboard or the motherboard.

Smarty pants... :p

 

[Zaaphod]

Yea... So I'm calling SuperMicro tomorrow and if they can't get me the HBA then I'll have to RMA the board.. which I might have to do anyway... it seems more like a controller failure that it can write several terrabytes but can't read a few kilobytes. also getting those messages indicating a reset of some sort, but my drive power cycles do not increase.. sounds like the controller is resetting.

 

[Zaaphod]

I got a replacement SuperMicro A1SA7-2750F motherboard and this one is having problems too.. It can't boot all the way to the BIOS, with nothing attached to it besides a monitor and the same RAM that has been working fine in the previous motherboard and also in the SuperMicro A1SRM-LN7F-2758 motherboard that is supposed to be my ESXI server, but I have been using for FreeNAS.. Switching Motherboards seems to have cured the errors I was getting when reading from the NAS. So I'm getting tired of messing with the A1SA7-2750F motherboards for this, and I'm thinking to switching to a different ATOM based motherboard.

At the moment, I'm looking at the ASRock Intel Avoton C2750 as a replacement, It has the following improvments over the SuperMicro A1SA7-2750F:

No SAS drive support.. they are all SATA III (8 ports) and SATA II (4 Ports), so I'm guessing I won't have to mess with SAS firmware version problems
Standard ATX Power supply connection, as opposed to the odd connectors on the A1SA7-2750F... not a big deal since I have it figured out...
Standard mini-ITX format as opposed to the proprietary format of the A1SA7-2750F

the downside...
only 12 SATA ports, and 4 of those are only SATA II - as opposed to 17 SATA III ports on the A1SA2750F - well I didn't have 17 drives anyway
no SAS drive support - not sure if I care about that unless someone tells me why I should - I'm not sure I really like the LSI2116 - it gets pretty darn hot.. hotter than the processor - I felt I had to put a fan on it
also uses unbuffered ECC DDR3 RAM - same as the A1SA2750F - for some reason this is REALLY hard to find and expensive, especially if you want 64GB or RAM. I ended up settling for 32GB
other than these things, everything else seems to be the same, same processor, RAM.. etc..

Any comments or suggestions? Is there another motherboard I should consider? perhaps one that will use easier to get RAM? I'm looking for low power consumption and reasonable performance. I was happy with the A1SA7-2750F in these regards.

 

[anodos]

I got a replacement SuperMicro A1SA7-2750F motherboard and this one is having problems too.. It can't boot all the way to the BIOS, with nothing attached to it besides a monitor and the same RAM that has been working fine in the previous motherboard and also in the SuperMicro A1SRM-LN7F-2758 motherboard that is supposed to be my ESXI server, but I have been using for FreeNAS.. Switching Motherboards seems to have cured the errors I was getting when reading from the NAS. So I'm getting tired of messing with the A1SA7-2750F motherboards for this, and I'm thinking to switching to a different ATOM based motherboard.

At the moment, I'm looking at the ASRock Intel Avoton C2750 as a replacement, It has the following improvments over the SuperMicro A1SA7-2750F:

No SAS drive support.. they are all SATA III (8 ports) and SATA II (4 Ports), so I'm guessing I won't have to mess with SAS firmware version problems
Standard ATX Power supply connection, as opposed to the odd connectors on the A1SA7-2750F... not a big deal since I have it figured out...
Standard mini-ITX format as opposed to the proprietary format of the A1SA7-2750F

the downside...
only 12 SATA ports, and 4 of those are only SATA II - as opposed to 17 SATA III ports on the A1SA2750F - well I didn't have 17 drives anyway
no SAS drive support - not sure if I care about that unless someone tells me why I should - I'm not sure I really like the LSI2116 - it gets pretty darn hot.. hotter than the processor - I felt I had to put a fan on it
also uses unbuffered ECC DDR3 RAM - same as the A1SA2750F - for some reason this is REALLY hard to find and expensive, especially if you want 64GB or RAM. I ended up settling for 32GB
other than these things, everything else seems to be the same, same processor, RAM.. etc..

Any comments or suggestions? Is there another motherboard I should consider? perhaps one that will use easier to get RAM? I'm looking for low power consumption and reasonable performance. I was happy with the A1SA7-2750F in these regards.

Why not just use an x10SL7 with an appropriate CPU. It's not like you're looking at a major increase in power consumption.
If you need more than 32GB RAM, then look into the X10SRL with E5-1620.

 

[Zaaphod]

Thanks for the suggestions. unfortunately it looks like neither would use my 2x 16GB DDR3 RAM I have already. The X10SL7 uses DDR3 but not 16GB modules, and the X10SRL uses DDR4.
I don't think I really need more than 32GB of RAM but I got 2x 16 instead of 4x 32 so I could expand to 64GB if necessary.

Perhaps I'll still be better off replacing the entire thing. and just getting new RAM and everything. I'm just barely within the 30 guarantee for the RAM I have and while the X10SRL with E5-1620 alone would be a bit more expensive than the A1SA2750F.. If I factor in the ridiculous cost of the RAM for the A1SA2750F ( it would end up being over $800 for 64GB of compatible DDR3 ubbuffered RAM) then the X10SRL with processor and 64GB of normal priced RAM might even be less expensive. What speed ram would I need for the E5-1620 processor? I'm triyng to figure it out.. the super micro page here: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/c600/x10srl-f.cfm
states DDR4 RAM but when I look up the specifications on the E5-1620 processor
here and There
They show DDR3.