How to proof bad USB stick for RMA

[HolyK]

Hiao all ... so, i just got that scary email about one of my pools are in degraded state. Even i am running RAIDZ2 that mail is just way scary. Luckily it is "only" the boot pool which is mirrored ... phew.

Thing is that this is the second time i encountered it. First time i just kicked out the bad one from pool and re-added and let it resilvered. Then i scheduled scrub just to see what will happen and nothing, not a single error. Now, after a month or so the situation repeats, so looks like something is really bad with the USB stick and i will need to replace it.

Question is ... how can i proof the issues to the seller for RMA? The stick is like 7 months old so i can claim for replacement, but since it "works" (but has some issues) they will probably refuse the RMA. I am thinking about doing some tests for them like "Hey, that stick will get screwed in time, here are some tests i made" but i duno how. The standard smartctl does not work for USB. I tried to make it work via the -d option but no luck.

To be honest, i am lazy as fu*k so i will probably just throw it to the garbage and order a new one for few bucks but anyway, i am curious how actually i can test these USB flash sticks ...

 

[nightshade00013]

Smart will only work on a drive that supports it. That will generally be hard drives or ssd's.

To check the drive for errors plug it into a windows computer and then right click on the drive go down to properties and then click on the tools tab. You can check for errors from there or get a tool that is made for it like Check Flash (ChkFlsh)

As far as an RMA on a usb drive, I would probably just buy a new one and leave it at that. Unless the manufacturer is going to pay for the return shipping you will likely lose more on that than getting a new one online.

 

[Ericloewe]

You could run badblocks on the drive until it decides to completely crap out.

As far as an RMA on a usb drive, I would probably just buy a new one and leave it at that. Unless the manufacturer is going to pay for the return shipping you will likely lose more on that than getting a new one online.

This, of course, is a valid point.

 

[HolyK]

Well the shop is in the city so no shipping, but 2x trip (one for RMA and second to withdraw get the new one or the old one if not accepted), anyway like i said, i am too lazy and even if i wouldn't the time to get there and back (2x) is more precious than few bucks for new stick. I was just curious how to test. Imagine one of these 1TB sticks ... i don't have one but these aren't that cheap :D

 

[joeschmuck]

If you can replace those USB sticks with a SSD, do it. SSD prices have dropped so much and with all the holiday sales going on (assuming you are in the US) then you could pick one up dirt cheap.

Running any test that writes to the flash will be harmful so you could run badblocks in destructive mode and force the flash drive to fail hard, it may take some time but then you can prove that it's broken.

 

[jgreco]

The low end SSD's (30GB etc) have been that cheap for quite some time; I added a pair and a RAID controller for FreeNAS boot back in FreeNAS-8 days.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

If you can replace those USB sticks with a SSD, do it. SSD prices have dropped so much and with all the holiday sales going on (assuming you are in the US) then you could pick one up dirt cheap.

Running any test that writes to the flash will be harmful so you could run badblocks in destructive mode and force the flash drive to fail hard, it may take some time but then you can prove that it's broken.

Yes sir! I tossed in two 120GB SSD's about 3 weeks ago. One for boot and one for the jail. It is amazing how much smoother the update process has become. And the jails operate smooth as butter.

 

[HolyK]

Damn... second stick went also wrong. One day my network drives were kicked out. I was like WTF and fired up the webgui - nothing ... second WTF and a third one just in case while searching the PuTTy icon on my desktop. Unable to connect. FU*K that (since WTF's were obviously not enough) while smashing ENTER over the IPMI View icon. KVM fired up aaaand ... F-U-C-K ... "vm_fault: pager read error" root FS is fucked out, unable to start shell ... /rescue/sh worked, but not so much things to do there ... tried the previous boot snapsot, same shit ... long story short, the stick is fcked up ...

Well ... that's what happened when one not replace the failed device right after failure ... second will get fcked too !

Luckily i had that amazing auto-config backup script sooo that puppy was back on the feet in few minutes ^^

 

[joeschmuck]

Damn... second stick went also wrong.

Well that's not good. Glad you eventually fixed the server but it really sucks you had that experience.

 

[HolyK]

Yea, two of the same kind died like two months after each other. Both same brand/size ... these ... i liked them due to the small size - i could push the server as close to wall as possible, so my cats would not mess with the I/O panel and network cables :] ... will not use them anymore. When the first one went wrong and pool got degraded i just resilvered. It went to degraded state again in few days. I was a bit busy recently so did not found a time to buy a new small stick and replace the failing one until yesterday ... too late, the second stick went fcked too and freenas was not able to boot.

Thing is when i removed the partitions and re-formated they looks like OK, at least dummy windows is noc complaining but i don't believe anymore.

I am now running with one of these while thinking if i should buy second one to make the mirror again or go for 32GB SSD for the system ...

 

[joeschmuck]

I'd shoot for the SSD, but whatever you can purchase for cheap. I have a Silicon Power SSD (120GB) that I've been using for nearly a year without a single incident. They are some of the cheaper models on the market, and although I am using mine as a Windows 10 boot device, it doesn't get a ton of use since I only enable the drive when I want to bootstrap a hardware Win10 system, otherwise I'm running Win7. My point is, even a cheap SSD is most likely to last a USB flash drive. And I did say most likely. Also, this is the cheapest SSD I've ever purchased, my other SSDs are Crucial or Samsung.

I of course have seen a lot of postings recommending the USB drive you purchased, but I'm sure you have read that I'm not a person who believes in the mirrored boot device idea. But everyone will make up their own minds on what to do.