Pool suddenly turned Unhealthy - Relatively new set up - Need help!

[mdwyer89]

Hi everyone, I am pretty new to this and have set up my simple Truenas server to hold all my pictures/video files. I repurposed an old gaming PC I don't use anymore and just put in two new western digital drives. My specs are in my signature.

I was transferring files from my server to my laptop and suddenly got the error from Windows "Error 0x8007045D: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error".

I then did some googling and ran a scrub on my system. I am seeing the following. One possible cause is the SATA cables needing to be replaced or reseated. I used SATA cables that I know work but are not brand new, restarted the system and ran the scrub again.

After rerunning the scrub I found the follow code to run on the command prompt for more detail -zpool status , and got the following results.

config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM Main ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 gptid/c141522f-9805-11ed-976f-c86000c0be66 ONLINE 0 080 gptid/c149fcd9-9805-11ed-976f-c86000c0be66 ONLINE 0 080 errors: 4 data errors, use '-v' for a list pool: boot-pool state: ONLINE scan: scrub repaired 0B in 00:00:06 with 0 errors on Thu Jan 26 03:45:06 2023 config:

So it looks like there are no errors? I then was able to identify the 4 files with errors which are video files. I also ran full short and long SMART tests on the drives and they came back with no issues.

So my questions are as follows:

1. How do I remove the errors? I tried to clear them and run the scrub again and it came back.
2. Is there a way to save the 4 files? I try to copy them out of the server onto my desktop and it almost completes and then fails.
3. Should I get new SATA cables? Could it be the hard drives? Could it be the power supply?
4. Should I immediately back up my data? Right now it is all just on these drives.

Is there anything else I should try, I would really appreciate anyones help here. Thanks!

 

[ChrisRJ]

Is there anything else I should try,

What about your backup?

 

[mdwyer89]

What about your backup?

I don’t have a separate backup device other than taking snapshots each day? I could probably get the original 4 files I have stored elsewhere. Is there a way to restore or delete those files to clear the errors?

 

[jgreco]

backup device other than taking snapshots each day?

Snapshots are not backup against corruption, because they use the exact same data blocks as the original data. Snapshots can cover issues such as inadvertent deletion, but if a block in your pool goes bad due to disk corruption or something like that, it goes bad in all snapshots too.

 

[mdwyer89]

Snapshots are not backup against corruption, because they use the exact same data blocks as the original data. Snapshots can cover issues such as inadvertent deletion, but if a block in your pool goes bad due to disk corruption or something like that, it goes bad in all snapshots too.

Got it! I misunderstood their purpose. So how do I go about fixing this and getting it back to a healthy pool?

 

[jgreco]

My offhand guess would be that it's an SMR drive, they tend to blat out a bunch of errors all at once when they're having trouble. Do you have the exact model number?

 

[mdwyer89]

My offhand guess would be that it's an SMR drive, they tend to blat out a bunch of errors all at once when they're having trouble. Do you have the exact model number?

Is that the hard drive? They are brand new but I guess they can fail? It is WD20EZBX

 

[Ericloewe]

Oh yeah, that's an SMR drive.

 

[mdwyer89]

Oh yeah, that's an SMR drive.

Ok they are still under the return window. Should I return them? How do I go about getting my data on new drive? Do I just buy 2 new ones make a new pool and copy the data over? Then return them? Should I get a different model?

 

[jgreco]

Is that the hard drive? They are brand new but I guess they can fail? It is WD20EZBX

According to WD, that's an SMR drive.

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-blue-hdd/product-brief-western-digital-wd-blue-pc-hdd.pdf

SMR drives are basically archival drives that are not particularly good with copy-on-write filesystems such as ZFS. There's a lot already written on the topic if you wish to know more, just search for "SMR ZFS" or something like that.

 

[mdwyer89]

According to WD, that's an SMR drive.

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-blue-hdd/product-brief-western-digital-wd-blue-pc-hdd.pdf

SMR drives are basically archival drives that are not particularly good with copy-on-write filesystems such as ZFS. There's a lot already written on the topic if you wish to know more, just search for "SMR ZFS" or something like that.

Oh I see! So I guess I bought the wrong drives! Should I get the WD NAS drives? They are still under the return window. Should I return them? How do I go about getting my data on new drive? Do I just buy 2 new ones make a new pool and copy the data over? Then return them? Should I get a different model?

 

[jgreco]

Should I get the WD NAS drives?

Some WD NAS drives are also SMR. Research any potential drive purchase first.

Should I return them?

It's probably best, if you don't have another use for them.

Do I just buy 2 new ones make a new pool and copy the data over?

You can do that. It really depends on where the data came from in the first place. Is there an existing source for the data? Did you copy it from an old computer, external drives, etc? If you have enough power and SATA connections, you can create a second pool with the new drives and then just copy directly.

Then return them? Should I get a different model?

Well, starting the Amazon return process will get you an extra... what is it, two weeks? A month? So if you order replacement drives and start the return process, that may work in your favor.

 

[mdwyer89]

Some WD NAS drives are also SMR. Research any potential drive purchase first.



It's probably best, if you don't have another use for them.



You can do that. It really depends on where the data came from in the first place. Is there an existing source for the data? Did you copy it from an old computer, external drives, etc? If you have enough power and SATA connections, you can create a second pool with the new drives and then just copy directly.



Well, starting the Amazon return process will get you an extra... what is it, two weeks? A month? So if you order replacement drives and start the return process, that may work in your favor.

Thank you! Will these work? WD Red Plus? Model # WD40EFPX they might b SMR as well? Just looking for something affordable I don’t need a ton of storage right now.

Yes my MOBO and PSU have enough connectors to transfer over the files directly. Will it not also copy over the corrupted files too? I don’t have the original backups anymore as I took them off failing drives.