Noob Questions

[rOBvAN]

Hi guys, I was wondering if you could answer a few questions; some problems, some general.

The purpose of the NAS is just a 1:1 backup from my PC. It is comprised of 7 disks, mixed sizes in the equivalent of a JBOD config which is fine for my needs.
I know that at least 1 disk is failing as I see messages that show me it has several thousand uncorrectable sectors which leads me to my first question.

When there is a failure of a drive I see a message along the lines of 'periph destroyed'. Fine. So I want to try to view any logs but when I try to login to the web GUI it won't load and the NAS is no longer accessible on the network. I can still ping it but I need to reboot the system to regain function. Why is FreeNAS like this? The OS is not installed on this volume so why does the whole system lockup when there is a disk failure?

Second question is where can I find the logs? I know the tail /var/log/messages command but this only gives me the last few entries. I want to see things like disk errors, scrub reports and SMART reports.

Which leads me onto the third. When are scrubs performed? I set up a schedule to run every day at 3:00. This is enough or too much? (Is there an automatic scrub test performed?) Do I need to schedule SMART tests as well or do these run automatically?


Thank you in advance

 

[Evertb1]

Hi,

This forum is visited by a lot of helpful people (I myself have been helped a lot of times). But in order to help you they like to see that you keep within the forum rules. It saves time and the help you get will be of a better quality. So please read the forum rules and update your post accordingly. Another thing that can be very useful is taking a quick look at the Resources that are available (see the resources tab). There is a lot of information there. And last but not least: read the ZFS primer in the FreeNAS manual so you are able to name the things for what they are.

 

[rOBvAN]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

Which rules did I break? I don't know how else to ask these questions.

I searched for some of the questions already but the majority of posts are not relevant/specific enough.

 

[danb35]

set up a schedule to run every day at 3:00. This is enough or too much?

Far too often.

Is there an automatic scrub test performed?

By default, there's a scrub every 35 days. I don't think that's quite often enough, and run mine every two weeks.

Do I need to schedule SMART tests as well

Yes.

Which rules did I break?

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/updated-forum-rules-4-11-17.45124/

Please provide the exact build number of the system, which can be found at System ‣ Information, as well as the amount of RAM on the system. If additional hardware information is needed, you will be asked to attach a debug file. Debug files are created with the System ‣ Advanced ‣ Save Debug menu entry.

Hardware information is extremely important when diagnosing problems. This includes:

• motherboard make and model
• CPU make and model
• RAM quantity
• hard drives, quantity, model numbers, and RAID configuration
• hard disk controllers
• network cards

 

[Evertb1]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

Which rules did I break? I don't know how else to ask these questions.

I searched for some of the questions already but the majority of posts are not relevant/specific enough.

Hi, Its more a matter of not follow up on rules then breaking them. At the top of the forum pages you see a couple of tabs. One of those is titled "Forum rules". There you can read what information is asked of you when you post. And it is not to patronize people, but to get an as good as possible start. Information about your system for example. What looks trivial now sometimes can be the key to your problem. Just take some of your time to read it and give the asked for information.

To give you ahead for your questions look up this thread: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/need-help-setting-up-smart-zfs-scrubs.16182/
And I am sure there is a lot more to find on this subjects.

 

[wblock]

What arrangement are the seven disks in? If this is a stripe, it could explain the problems, or at least some of them.

No, FreeNAS is not normally this way, but misconfiguration can make it act like that.

PS: a clear, descriptive subject line for the thread helps attract people who can help solve that particular problem. Vague subject lines that do not describe what is being asked often result in few answers, as does asking multiple questions in a single thread.

 

[rOBvAN]

First, thanks for all the replies. Very helpful so far. I have been checking out some of the resources and they have helped (although it can take time to find relevant ones). One day I hope to collate some of these resources into one to help people like myself who are just starting out and only need the basics.

No, not stripe, JBOD as they are disks of various sizes (1x3TB, 4x2TB and 1x1TB).

I have now turned off sleep mode on all the drives, perhaps that will stabilise it.

Again, thank you all

 

[Evertb1]

First, thanks for all the replies. Very helpful so far. I have been checking out some of the resources and they have helped (although it can take time to find relevant ones). One day I hope to collate some of these resources into one to help people like myself who are just starting out and only need the basics.

No, not stripe, JBOD as they are disks of various sizes (1x3TB, 4x2TB and 1x1TB).

I have now turned off sleep mode on all the drives, perhaps that will stabilise it.

Again, thank you all

I am very curious (and I am sure others with me) about how you configured your storage. One of the reasons people go with FreeNAS is the ZFS file system. It comes with it's own rules for the configuration of your storage. Making wrong decisions there, could very well mean that the loss of a single disk means the loss of your complete volume (and thus all the data in that volume). And no way of recovering from that (until now and as far as I know). And there is no substitute for backups if you love your data. Please read the ZFS primer in the FreeNAS manual.

 

[rOBvAN]

There is no need for redundancy here on the NAS. It is just being used as a backup from a PC. Data is backed up onto it every day 1:1

 

[garm]

Well then don’t do anything, reboot FreeNAS and destroy the pool and recreate the backup.

You can’t log in too the GUI because there are probably system resources on the now broken pool. Rebooting should fix it

 

[danb35]

No, not stripe, JBOD

FreeNAS doesn't do JBOD, unless by that you mean putting each disk into its own volume. As your storage screen shot indicates, you didn't do that. So if you didn't use any redundancy when you created the pool, all the disks are striped. If/when one fails, you'll lose all the data on your pool.

 

[Ericloewe]

There is no need for redundancy here on the NAS. It is just being used as a backup from a PC. Data is backed up onto it every day 1:1

Please upload images directly to the forum instead of using third-party image hosts.

It's barely been 8 hours and the image is already broken.