How to tell which drive is dead - PLEASE HELP!!!

[NOT_Bill_Gates]

I have been running FreeNAS for awhile and, inevitably, drives die. I have a Lenovo ThinkServer with a LSI card (no BIOS, non-RAID mode) connected to my 8 drives. I, of course, can tell that, for example, da7 just died, but I cannot tell which drive is actually da7 as it looks like FreeNAS has renamed them. I used to know which drive was da0-da7, but there are no indicator lights on the outside that show meaningful information. There are lights, but apparently just indicate power, so which drive is dead is not so obvious. Even when dead, the lights still shine (constant, not blinking like a hard drive activity light). I end up restarting it and from the LSI card's info, I unplug them from the hot-swap carriages and refresh and watch the screen, which tells me that 7, not 8 drives are there. I keep unplugging, one at a time, which leaves 6 drives until I get to the dead drive in which all 7 show up. I then replace the dead drive and refresh and it shows 8 drives, then boot back up into FreeNAS and then add the new drive and resilver. There HAS to be a better way! Can you guys help me? If I can do it without shutting down that would be a help, but even better would be a way to blink the lights on individual drives. I would even add little LEDs to each drive if that would help.

 

[Jailer]

Go to the storage tab in the GUI and click the view disks button.

 

[kdragon75]

Go to the storage tab in the GUI and click the view disks button.

That's a start. This will tell you the disk serial number. If you don't have the drives labeled (like 90% of the people here) you will need to find out what drive bay this is. Depending on your HBA this may help.

 

[BigDave]

This is great example why admins (of HOT SWAP production machines) should label your drives (or drive trays) so they can be identified without shutting down the server.
FreeNAS makes this drive replacement process so easy, but knowing which
drive is in which bay is critical to the swift and painless resolution to replacing
a failed drive.

As @Jailer has suggested, look at VIEW DISKS, if the drive has dropped out of the pool, it won't be in that view. Just write down the last four numbers of each drives serial number, shut down FreeNAS and find the serial number that is not on the list you have written earlier. Pull the drive that's not on the list and slap in the cold spare that you have had burned in and standing by.;)
WHAT! you don't have one ready? FOR SHAME!

 

[danb35]

...and if the disk is completely dead, such that it (with its serial number) isn't showing up at all, use a process of elimination: get the serials of the other seven, and compare them with the eight disks you have. The one that isn't on the list of seven is the dead one. And then label your disks.

 

[NOT_Bill_Gates]

Serial numbers. Yes, I can do that, but didn't think I needed to label them ahead of time. A friend had a server in which he could blink the lights to identify drives. I had hoped someone would know how to do that. Why does FreeNAS seem to redefine drive identifiers like da3 or sb2? If those didn't change, it would be dead simple just to replace the drives in their numbered slots. I also notice that the new UI for FreeNAS 11.1-U4 under view disks has a place for Enclosure Slot, but currently the edit disks option does not let you input that info. Perhaps it is a feature coming soon . . . . hopefully

 

[danb35]

Why does FreeNAS seem to redefine drive identifiers like da3 or sb2?

FreeNAS itself doesn't; FreeBSD does. Disks are numbered in the order in which they appear to the OS, which is usually the same as the order of the physical ports they're plugged into, but that doesn't help if a disk is completely dead.

 

[NOT_Bill_Gates]

I would just like to thank everyone who responded to my query. It is a community like this one that gives the kind of support that gives open source a good name. If anyone has ever had the lovely experience of speaking to someone on a customer support line when the person on the other end knows less about what you are calling about than you, then you can all appreciate how truly grateful I am for this community forum.