Not getting SMART data from new drives

[CLEsportsfan]

I'm building a new server on a Dell R720 and have the following SAS drives in my system: Seagate DL2400MM0159 and Toshiba PX04SVB040. I'm only getting limited SMART data from these SAS drives. On both types of drives, I don't get the "SMART Attributes Data Structure" table with all the SMART attributes and values. I get the current drive temperature, a basic error counter log and from the Seagates what week it was manufactured.

Both drives SMART support is enabled so I should be getting more data than this, right?

 

[Chris Moore]

Both drives SMART support is enabled so I should be getting more data than this, right?

Sorry, no, and I really tried. I bought a bunch of SAS drives, 70 of them, and I struggled with trying to dig data out of them but finally came to terms with the fact that they just don't do it the way SATA drives do.

The good news is, you can use SATA drives on SAS controllers, which is what I do in my servers instead of using SAS drives because I want to see the SMART data. It is a weakness of mine. I like to see those numbers.

 

[Chris Moore]

SAS drives

Here is a link to a related conversation:

smartctl attributes not displayed for SAS drives?

I too dont like the limited data that SAS drives give you vs SATA drives... Where is the "Enterprise" of SAS drives if i cant get (any) useful data out of them to tell if they are pre-fail?! that said, i did find this great command, that on my HGST SAS drives gave me a tad more info (addtl...

www.truenas.com

 

[CLEsportsfan]

Thank you very much for your reply. The link you posted was an interesting read. I (incorrectly) assumed SMART was supported on all drives and wasn't aware that it's just an ATA feature. It stinks, but that's what we get. Thankfully I know there's nothing wrong with my setup or HBA card in this regard since I was previously getting results for older SATA SSDs. I do have TrueNAS itself on a SATA drive, so at least there's that data to pull, but all the rest are SAS. Thanks again!

 

[jerryxlol]

And is there any different behavior for sas vs sata drives when comes to the error or failure of the drive ? If not why you so much need that data?

 

[Chris Moore]

And is there any different behavior for sas vs sata drives when comes to the error or failure of the drive ?

I have a server at work that has 64 SAS drives, in four 16 bay drive shelves, and the problem I have seen with the SAS drives is that they don't give useful health data to alert of a failure before the failure happens. That could be more a feature of the manufacturer because I see similar behavior in their SATA drives, but the SAS drives I have worked with will just quit working one day with little or no explanation. Mind you, the drives I have were running 24/7 for around 5 or 6 years, but I have had seven drives fail in that storage pool between the start of December and now.

If not why you so much need that data?

The SATA drives that I prefer to use are by Seagate and those drives usually start having bad sectors when they are beginning to go bad. You can see that as soon as it starts happening in the SATA version of SMART data. When they start to go bad, you can replace them early, before they have a chance to cause damage to data in the pool. It is good practice to monitor the health of the drives so they can be replaced early if they start to go bad. You especially don't want to wait because another drive might decide to go bad also, then you have two bad drives at once. Never a good situation to be in...
Here is a link to the troubleshooting guide:

Hard Drive Troubleshooting Guide (All Versions of FreeNAS)

UPDATE: 22 September 2018 - Added Drive Data Refreshing UPDATE: 2 April 2017 - Added support for FreeNAS Corral (FreeNAS 10 and beyond) UPDATE: 1 November 2020 - Added ID 1 and 7 description for Seagate drives at bottom of Appendix B This guide...

www.truenas.com

 

[jerryxlol]

Yeah i see, but when the sector appear sas drive will fill this smart Error counter log with values that every common controller validates as failure of the drive. Bad sector is for drive something as "i have tried several times read or write and i got bullshit". So when this info appears in smart on SATA drive it will appear in SAS error log the same way. So that was why i was asking if truenas or zfs is understanding values right.

My question was misunderstood => Why do you need that data in ATA format, when sas error log is sufficient?

I got to this thread because i hesitating if to do multipath sas 12g or single sata.

 

[Chris Moore]

Why do you need that data in ATA format, when sas error log is sufficient?

SATA SMART reporting, appears to provide more data points, at least on some drive brands, but there is nothing wrong with SAS.

I got to this thread because i hesitating if to do multipath sas 12g or single sata.

If you want to use multipath SAS, there are many other people using it, and it does work correctly under TrueNAS. There have even been a couple of useful scripts written to help with keeping an eye on drive health that you might want to look into.

This one for example:

GitHub - nephri/FreeNas-DiskList: FreeNas "Disklist" script for report informations about installed hard drives, volumes and partitions

FreeNas "Disklist" script for report informations about installed hard drives, volumes and partitions - nephri/FreeNas-DiskList

github.com

It will give a nice listing that shows both da#s for the multipath and the 'disk#' that resolves to.

Here is an example, but the new version of the script formats it better:

Code:

./disklist.pl -i:zpool my_vol1 -all
partition                    label                                zpool    device    sector  disk               size  type  serial    rpm  location         multipath                  mode
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
multipath/disk1p2  gptid/a882790c-cffb-11e7-a102-f46d0428d010  my_vol1  da13,da6     512  SEAGATE ST1000NM0023  1000  HDD   Z1xxx3K  7200  SAS3008(0):3#11  multipath/disk1
multipath/disk2p2  gptid/6fc2aa85-4cee-11e6-b6e0-f46d0428d010  my_vol1  da12,da5     512  SEAGATE ST1000NM0023  1000  HDD   Z1xxxGR  7200  SAS3008(0):3#8   multipath/disk2
multipath/disk3p2  gptid/0f7472dc-2424-11e4-8980-f46d0428d010  my_vol1  da10,da3     512  SEAGATE ST1000NM0023  1000  HDD   Z1xxx81  7200  SAS3008(0):3#6   multipath/disk3
multipath/disk4p2  gptid/0ecce300-2424-11e4-8980-f46d0428d010  my_vol1  da9,da2      512  SEAGATE ST1000NM0023  1000  HDD   Z1xxx5M  7200  SAS3008(0):3#5   multipath/disk4
multipath/disk5p2  gptid/0f3b1967-2424-11e4-8980-f46d0428d010  my_vol1  da1,da8      512  SEAGATE ST1000NM0023  1000  HDD   Z1xxxDY  7200  SAS3008(0):3#4   multipath/disk5
multipath/disk6p2  gptid/0f031df2-2424-11e4-8980-f46d0428d010  my_vol1  da0,da7      512  SEAGATE ST1000NM0023  1000  HDD   Z1xxx95  7200  SAS3008(0):3#3   multipath/disk6
multipath/disk7p2  gptid/e4eee36e-b824-11e5-882c-f46d0428d010  my_vol1  da11,da4     512  SEAGATE ST1000NM0023  1000  HDD   Z1xxxA1  7200  SAS3008(0):3#7   multipath/disk7