SOLVED Need help with warning... "smartd_demon is not running"

[Muku]

Whenever I'm logging into the web GUI, I'm getting this warning "smartd_demon is not running". It has been like this for past few weeks. My NAS is working fine however. Should I be worried or should I ignore it?

Thanks

 

[Chris Moore]

It is something that needs to be corrected. The system can't run SMART testing to monitor drive health without that.

Are you booting from a USB device?

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[Muku]

It is something that needs to be corrected. The system can't run SMART testing to monitor drive health without that.

Are you booting from a USB device?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

hmm.. I'm using two mirrored pen drives as my boot drive
So, what should i do?

 

[Chris Moore]

SMART can't deal with the USB drives so you need to unselect them in the drive list. If that doesn't make sense, I will give you better guidance when I get to my office.

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[Muku]

SMART can't deal with the USB drives so you need to unselect them in the drive list. If that doesn't make sense, I will give you better guidance when I get to my office.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

I can see my drives in the view disks tab but can't unselect them. I would appreciate if you can give me a bit detailed direction on how to do it. thanks.
But why I'm getting this warning now? I mean I am running the same system for last 3 yrs.. never had a problem. why now?

 

[Chris Moore]

I would appreciate if you can give me a bit detailed direction on how to do it. thanks.

See the column of the disk view that has "Enable S.M.A.R/R" as the column heading?

That circled element is what you need to change. So click the disk and select the option to edit the properties. That will open another menu that looks like this:

Just uncheck the box and click OK. The SMART daemon should automatically start.

But why I'm getting this warning now? I mean I am running the same system for last 3 yrs.. never had a problem. why now?

This is my theory about why you are getting the error you asked about. I don't know why the behavior changed. Did you upgrade to a newer version of FreeNAS at about the time you started seeing this?
I suppose it is possible there is another problem with one or both of the USB boot devices that has caused the smartd_daemon to not be able to start. The USB devices usually don't give any kind of warning when they are about to fail, they just suddenly don't work properly any more.
It is also possible there is another disk in the system that is not working properly. Have you been running regularly scheduled SMART tests?

 

[Muku]

Thanks a lot. I unchecked the boxes & the warning is gone now.

Have you been running regularly scheduled SMART tests?

nope. I thought freenas is suppose to run the SMART by itself & letting me know if something is wrong with the drives. Should I be running SMART manually? Pls let me know how to do it.

It is also possible there is another disk in the system that is not working properly.

I think one of my boot drive is failing. when i unchecked the SMART box for my 'da0' drive & clicked OK, I got a green box at the top saying "failed to start service" or something like that. Then when I unchecked for the other "da1", it said service started successfully. Should I replace my boot drives?

 

[Chris Moore]

nope. I thought freenas is suppose to run the SMART by itself & letting me know if something is wrong with the drives. Should I be running SMART manually? Pls let me know how to do it.

It is something that you need to schedule. It doesn't automatically configure tests but it will notify you when a failure is detected in a regular drive. There is no way to test these USB drives which is why I stopped suggesting them.

I think one of my boot drive is failing. when i unchecked the SMART box for my 'da0' drive & clicked OK, I got a green box at the top saying "failed to start service" or something like that. Then when I unchecked for the other "da1", it said service started successfully. Should I replace my boot drives?

From what you say, I am thinking that the 'da1' device might be going bad. Are you able to recheck the box for da0 and smartd stays running?

I like to use actual hard drives for my boot pool because they can be tested by SMART and monitored for faults. Some other people prefer to use SSDs because they are usually very reliable, but the speed of modern SSDs is wasted on FreeNAS boot media.
There are many options. Do you have a backup of your system config?

 

[Muku]

There are many options.

Hi, there. Sorry I was busy for last couple of weeks. Couldn't follow your last post. What can I use as my boot drive apart from the mirrored USB drive I'm using right now? I chose USB drives in the first place because I wanted to use all the 6 SATA ports for my storage.

Do you have a backup of your system config?

Yes