Urgently need to get data off FreeNAS zpool

[MorneDJ]

OK, I setup a FreeNAS 8.3.0 pc in 2012 with 4x 2GB drives, one spare. Its been working uninterrupted in a corner for the past few years, getting used daily for my wife's business. Last week we had one massive electric storm, and the following day the FreeNAS was down, first time ever. After a few carefull checks I identified the one drive that went down .... BUT, the other drive's smart status is BAD !!!

So, I urgently need to get the data from the PC with the least amount of stress (mine, my wife and the bad drive).

Currently I am copying the data via a very slow network, but what would be the fastest, dropping in an external drive on the PC or risk shutting the PC down (i battled to get it going this morning), dropping in a new drive, setup a new pool to copy the data from the zpool ?

Guess that the new drive would be fastest, but if the BAD drive fail now ....

What can you guys advise or propose?

 

[Ericloewe]

Once you have the most irreplaceable data out, what's wrong with just resilvering the dubious disks? That's going to be the best option, particularly if you can attach enough new drives to resilver them all at once?

 

[MorneDJ]

Hmm, I am not worrying about rebuilding the pool with new disks or removing the broken disks. I already removed the one disk that I can audibly hear is broken. FreeNAS does not even want to start up with that disk attached. The BIOS takes ages to get past that boot.

The other disk that SMART is reporting as BAD, is still in, but when I go to >Storage > Volumes > View Volumes and try to view the disks or the volume status I get nothing, just a blank screen. Naturally the Orange blinking Alert light is going disco. So I cannot remove the broken drive, neither can I see the disks (View Disks is also empty, no information).

I am currently removing the 107 GB of family photos from the pool via a networked PC. It is very slow, on 27 GB after about 2 hours, with a predicted 3 hours to go.

According to my wife that is the most important, after that I need to get some important business stuff second then her financials third.

After that I hope to get each other folder (about 1 TB of document) over the next few days). But ... if the third drive goes then ....

That is why am would like to get all the data from the pool ASAP

 

[Jailer]

Sounds like prioritizing getting the data off as you already have is the best plan. Of course the best plan would have been to already have a backup plan in place in case emergencies like this pop up but I'm sure you already know that. ;)

 

[rs225]

What we need to see is a zpool status

But continue the copying. Better to get the data out than work on the pool at this time.

 

[zoomzoom]

@MorneDJ From your OP, I gather you believe the electric storm damaged the HDD?

• If you don't currently, a FreeNAS server should always have a UPS connected to it, as power loss can cause every imported pool to be irrevocably damaged by the corruption caused from a dirty shutdown (i.e. immediate power loss).

• It's also unlikely an electrical surge would cause mechanical damage to one drive and leave all others untouched.
  • The only mechanical part in a hard drive controlled by a motor is the spindle, while the heads are attached to a voice coil situated between two powerful permanent magnets, of which is controlled via magnetic polarity fields
    • It's called a voice coil because it operates the same way a speaker's voice coil does, simply horizontally instead of vertically

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

when I go to >Storage > Volumes > View Volumes and try to view the disks or the volume status I get nothing, just a blank screen

It's possible the boot device was trashed and not much else.

 

[Vito Reiter]

Is it 4x2GB or 2TB drives? I think there was a typo there, I would look into seeing if you can't use import volume to pick it back up and mount, or rebuild the boot volume to a working state. Also, is there any redundancy on that volume (Mirror, Z1/2/3, etc.)? Also, you can try to plug a monitor into the NAS box itself, (9 for shell) and see if you can't get a smartctl report or zpool status report for us. If we're being completely honest there's times where I have knocked on an HDD to get it to pick back up (UNRECOMMENDED). What else you could do is if you can see the disks in the GUI, offline the one you took out jut so the software knows it is not supposed to be there and see if you can't get things operating again.