Multipath Disks and Disks

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thb2006

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I am using a iXsystems Certified FreeNAS device. One of the most common annoyances I have run into is when trying to use a disk that was once used in another FreeNAS box. Of course whenever I do a Google search on what to do I run into the typical stuff that you see all over this forum:

Give yourself absolute power:
sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=0x10

Wipe out the disk header:
dd if=/dev/da6 of=/dev/null bs=1m count=100
dd if=/dev/da16 of=/dev/null bs=1m count=100

Destroy the multipath:
gmultipath destroy -v disk6

Reboot

I have performed the above steps in many different ways (different combinations of the above steps). Really long story short, I have collectively at least 8 hours of experience in trying to get FreeNAS to see particular disks the same way that it saw them the first time I plugged them in. It's almost as if, "Once a FreeNAS disk, always a FreeNAS disk".

Obviously another solution would be to wipe the disk using some utility on another box. Well, that would be fairly easy to do if these were not SAS drives.

The problem with this scenario is that I cannot add a VDEV of disks (in any particular ZRAID configuration) to a ZPOOL if the VDEV contains a mixture of *new hard drives and **old hard drives.

*new - Drives that are brand new out of the box and have never been introduced into a ZPOOL on a FreeNAS system.
**old - Drives that were once a part of a ZPOOL on a FreeNAS system.


Can anyone shed some light on my troubles and possibly point me in the right direction so that in the end I can successfully add 5 mixed status (old and new) drives to an existing ZPOOL?
 
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Wipe out the disk header:
dd if=/dev/da6 of=/dev/null bs=1m count=100
dd if=/dev/da16 of=/dev/null bs=1m count=100

Probably a typo... You've got that backwards. Input should be null and output should be the disk.

My experience is you have to wipe the first blocks and last blocks of each disk. It takes me longer to look up then do the math to figure out how to wipe the last blocks that I end up just nulling out the entire drive. Which probably isn't the worst thing in the world anyway.

(For SATA drives, I mount them on my Windows desktop with a USB adapter, load them into diskpart and do a 'clean' on each disk; 'clean all' if I don't know much about the drive. Quick, easy and effective.)

Cheers,
Matt
 

thb2006

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Ooo, yes, very excellent. Nice to be using the correct command. Now moving on with the issue at hand. I was able to wipe every disk in the system (except the OS), and destroyed all multipaths, then rebooted the system. I was hoping to see all of my disks showing up once again under "Disks" within the GUI rather than multipaths. I was however disappointed. This is what I see whenever I try to create a ZPOOL:
upload_2017-1-27_14-17-0.png


Notice the 16 drives that were once a part of a ZPOOL. They all work just fine. I can select disks 1-5, 6-10, 11-15 and create a ZPOOL (3 VDEVs of 5 drives each). I can even add disk16 to the ZPOOL in it's own VDEV (Hah, that would be really bad). What I cannot do is join any (or all) remaining disks to the ZPOOL. I have even tried deleting everything, restarting and attempting to create a ZPOOL using any of the (daXX) drives or any combination of them. Whenever I try to, it says to me, "Unable to GPT format disk da32".
 

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thb2006

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Ok, so as some of you may know, I have been having issues trying to add another 5 disk VDEV (ZRAID2) to an existing pool consisting of 3 - 5 disk VDEVS for a 20 drive total ZPOOL.

The error I have been getting was, "Unable to GPT format disk daXX" (whatever it happens to be).

I have gone to the extent of testing 3 of these drives (because I can only handle 3 at a time on my PC's SAS interface) using "HD Tune Pro". I have run a full "0" wipe of all data on the drive (overnight process), I have also run all of the checks and everything on the 3 disks check out good. I also ran DISKPART: clean, created a simple volume on the drive, tested by adding a text file, saving, editing, deleting, (sometimes do unnecessary steps whenever I am desperate for something to work). Even after all of that, I cannot create a 1, 2, or 3 disk array (striped or mirrored) with any imaginable combination of the above. I tried doing single disk stripes on each of them (separately - no other drives plugged into the chassis).

I have tried all of the above on 2 different builds (9.3 STABLE and 9.10 STABLE).

I am suspect of my particular FreeNAS software itself. Is there some kind of cache that needs to be deleted? I am about to make the call to iXsystems but I wanted to make sure that this was not my problem before going to them.

BTW, I will say about iXsystems, despite my current situation I absolutely love their product but even more than that I have had very good dealings with their staff. I am going to go ahead and put the call in to them with hopes that they can help shed some light on this situation. If I get an answer from them I will post here what foundation of my issue was so that I may in turn help others who may run across the same thing.

I love FreeNAS, I am willing to work for it, and I have certainly put in my homework for this one.

Happy FreeNASing'
 
Joined
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Messages
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I'm afraid you have me stumped, @thb2006. It sounds like you've tried all the obvious stuff. I wish I had the magic wand. I'm sure it's something relatively simple; one missed step. Not that unreachable simple is any consolation, of course.

Hit up iXsystems and see if they have any feedback.

Cheers,
Matt
 
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