Help with "Degraded" Email

[zippy1]

I have received a few emails saying:

Code:

Checking status of gmirror(8) devices:
	   Name	Status  Components
mirror/swap0  DEGRADED  ada1p1 (ACTIVE)

-- End of daily output --

However if I look at the Storage > Volumes it says "Healthy" for all?

Do I need to do anything?

 

[zippy1]

Also from looking at another post on here where people have asked for the "zpool status -v" this lists as "errors: No known data errors" for both of the data pools and also the freenas-boot.

 

[Chris Moore]

The reason is that one of your swap mirrors got broken. A reboot will fix it.

Did you remove a drive from the system?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[zippy1]

The reason is that one of your swap mirrors got broken. A reboot will fix it.

Did you remove a drive from the system?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

Thanks Chris, No the server doesn't have hot swappable drives (and no drives have been removed).

 

[zippy1]

I will restart it later - I am currently doing a new backup of the main pool to 3rd NAS server (Not FreeNAS) so I have an automated monthly backup outside of FreeNAS.

 

[zippy1]

So a reboot does fix it for a few days but the same message keeps coming back.

Do I just ignore and reboot regularly or is there something else I need to do to fix? Or is this drive failing and needs to be replaced?

 

[Chris Moore]

So a reboot does fix it for a few days but the same message keeps coming back.

Do I just ignore and reboot regularly or is there something else I need to do to fix? Or is this drive failing and needs to be replaced?

Something is causing the storage drive associated with that swap mirror to go offline long enough to break the mirror and it comes back online. FreeNAS / ZFS takes the drive back into the pool and automatically resilvers andy missing data without even notifying you, if the disconnect is short enough, but the swap mirror is not able to do that. Swap is dynamically assigned at boot and is not corrected while the system is running. Maybe they will fix that later, but that is another question. Whether the hardware fault is with the drive, or the drive controller, or the cable connecting the two, there is a fault that is causing the drive to drop out for a moment and then come back online. In your place, I would replace the drive and then do extensive testing with the drive in question in another system to determine the status of the drive. If it is in warranty, you might just send it back for replacement, but I would still test it first. If you are still having problems with the drive going offline after having replaced it, I would look into the other hardware in the NAS. The easy fix might be to replace the cables between the drive and controller. I have seen faulty connectors cause problems. If there is still a problem, It may be the drive controller and if that it integrated in the system board, it may not be an easy fix.

 

[Chris Moore]

So a reboot does fix it for a few days but the same message keeps coming back.

Do I just ignore and reboot regularly or is there something else I need to do to fix? Or is this drive failing and needs to be replaced?

Something is causing the storage drive associated with that swap mirror to go offline long enough to break the mirror and it comes back online. FreeNAS / ZFS takes the drive back into the pool and automatically resilvers andy missing data without even notifying you, if the disconnect is short enough, but the swap mirror is not able to do that. Swap is dynamically assigned at boot and is not corrected while the system is running. Maybe they will fix that later, but that is another question. Whether the hardware fault is with the drive, or the drive controller, or the cable connecting the two, there is a fault that is causing the drive to drop out for a moment and then come back online. In your place, I would replace the drive and then do extensive testing with the drive in question in another system to determine the status of the drive. If it is in warranty, you might just send it back for replacement, but I would still test it first. If you are still having problems with the drive going offline after having replaced it, I would look into the other hardware in the NAS. The easy fix might be to replace the cables between the drive and controller. I have seen faulty connectors cause problems. If there is still a problem, It may be the drive controller and if that it integrated in the system board, it may not be an easy fix.

 

[MrToddsFriends]

Are regular SMART tests performed on the HDDs, especially for the HDD in question (ada1)?
http://doc.freenas.org/11/tasks.html#s-m-a-r-t-tests
http://doc.freenas.org/11/services.html#s-m-a-r-t