McKenn55
Cadet
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2014
- Messages
- 4
I'm new to the forums and I apologize if this is improperly categorized or I am not including the necessary details, or if this has already been asked. My google-fu did not show any results for any of these errors on the FreeNAS forums, but a few ServerFault posts suggested these errors are not necessarily indicative of faulty drive(s).
Short Version:
I received odd SMART "errors" that are off-putting, but my GUI and smartctl are showing my zPool and individual drives are both healthy. I only received the errors while transferring a massive amount of data to the system. The three types of emails I received are attached. It's important to note that these emails are not limited to a single drive, all six of my drives sent at least one of these email alerts.
"Device /dev/ada0, Read SMART Error Log Failed"
"Device /dev/ada0, failed to read SMART Attribute Data"
"Device /dev/ada0, Read SMART Self-Test Log Failed"
Long Version:
A little more than two weeks ago, I posted a request for assistance in designing a NAS/Plex media server. After receiving a suggestion from /u/BangleWaffle and doing extensive research here on the FreeNAS forums and all across the net, I decided on the following build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/mckenn55/saved/sJ2bt6
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcforme/comments/2awd8z/opinions_on_pcpartpicker_build_for_plex_media/
Parts arrived, everything was built out, the system passed the "smoke test" and POSTed fine. I actually ended up following JGreco's build and burn-in/testing guide nearly to a T without knowing it.
http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.17750/
I broke one of the rules, though, and did not perform memtest86 testing on the memory. But I did perform a long SMART test on all of the drives and everything passed.
I've set up FreeNAS on a thumb drive and set up a RaidZ2 zPool across the six 3TB drives. I set up CyberJock's suggested SMART scheduling (short tests every two days, long tests on the 8th and 22nd), with alert emails going to both a "high-priority" inbox through filters, and direct to my phone through SMS. I set up a single ZFS Dataset "Media" within my "MainRaid" zPool. I then set up the CIFS services to start transferring data. I transferred a total of about 2TB of data to the NAS over the course of a day. During the transfers, I received a number of these alert text messages and emails stating that the system was unable to read the SMART data attributes for the drives. The errors were not limited to a single drive. All six drives threw at least one of these errors. When I SSH into the box and run smartctl -a /dev/{drive} I can see that the SMART tests have been successfully run and no smart errors are logged on any of the drives. Overall, the drives appear healthy in all aspects. I've let the system idle for a few days since I transferred all of that data and I've not received any errors/alerts since.
Could it be that the transfer of data was taxing the drives too much? This may be a dumb question, but do the drives ignore requests for SMART data when processing large reads/writes? Are these benign errors or should I start doing a deeper scan of some sort to test these drives further? If so, what can I do to test these drives?
Overall, I'm very pleased with the system performance and the ease of setting up FreeNAS. My linux knowledge has served well as a jumping-off point for getting into FreeBSD, in my opinion. I appreciate any assistance that can be offered.
Short Version:
I received odd SMART "errors" that are off-putting, but my GUI and smartctl are showing my zPool and individual drives are both healthy. I only received the errors while transferring a massive amount of data to the system. The three types of emails I received are attached. It's important to note that these emails are not limited to a single drive, all six of my drives sent at least one of these email alerts.
"Device /dev/ada0, Read SMART Error Log Failed"
"Device /dev/ada0, failed to read SMART Attribute Data"
"Device /dev/ada0, Read SMART Self-Test Log Failed"
Long Version:
A little more than two weeks ago, I posted a request for assistance in designing a NAS/Plex media server. After receiving a suggestion from /u/BangleWaffle and doing extensive research here on the FreeNAS forums and all across the net, I decided on the following build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/mckenn55/saved/sJ2bt6
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcforme/comments/2awd8z/opinions_on_pcpartpicker_build_for_plex_media/
Parts arrived, everything was built out, the system passed the "smoke test" and POSTed fine. I actually ended up following JGreco's build and burn-in/testing guide nearly to a T without knowing it.
http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.17750/
I broke one of the rules, though, and did not perform memtest86 testing on the memory. But I did perform a long SMART test on all of the drives and everything passed.
I've set up FreeNAS on a thumb drive and set up a RaidZ2 zPool across the six 3TB drives. I set up CyberJock's suggested SMART scheduling (short tests every two days, long tests on the 8th and 22nd), with alert emails going to both a "high-priority" inbox through filters, and direct to my phone through SMS. I set up a single ZFS Dataset "Media" within my "MainRaid" zPool. I then set up the CIFS services to start transferring data. I transferred a total of about 2TB of data to the NAS over the course of a day. During the transfers, I received a number of these alert text messages and emails stating that the system was unable to read the SMART data attributes for the drives. The errors were not limited to a single drive. All six drives threw at least one of these errors. When I SSH into the box and run smartctl -a /dev/{drive} I can see that the SMART tests have been successfully run and no smart errors are logged on any of the drives. Overall, the drives appear healthy in all aspects. I've let the system idle for a few days since I transferred all of that data and I've not received any errors/alerts since.
Could it be that the transfer of data was taxing the drives too much? This may be a dumb question, but do the drives ignore requests for SMART data when processing large reads/writes? Are these benign errors or should I start doing a deeper scan of some sort to test these drives further? If so, what can I do to test these drives?
Overall, I'm very pleased with the system performance and the ease of setting up FreeNAS. My linux knowledge has served well as a jumping-off point for getting into FreeBSD, in my opinion. I appreciate any assistance that can be offered.
