Ejecting an Unused disk

[rpc]

Hello,

I am new to FreeNAS. We have a setup as follows:

2 x SATA DOMs for the FreeNAS OS (mirrored)
12 x WD Red Pro Disks (9 in use as 3 volumes)
2 x Intel SSD Disks (used for Write caching)

Last weekend we turned off the system so we can add 3 additional disks (going from 9 to 12). However, we did not assign volumes yet, so the 3 new disks are not in use.
A week later, we get a critical alert email from FreeNAS that one of the new disks has unreadable / uncorrectable sectors. I would like to pull this disk out so I can RMA it.

My question is: Do we need to shut down FreeNAS in order to pull out an used disk? There are not any options in the GUI to "eject" it. If the answer is "No", what needs to be done before pulling the drive, and can we insert the replacement disk also without shutting down first?

Thank you.

 

[Mlovelace]

Hello,

I am new to FreeNAS. We have a setup as follows:

2 x SATA DOMs for the FreeNAS OS (mirrored)
12 x WD Red Pro Disks (9 in use as 3 volumes)
2 x Intel SSD Disks (used for Write caching)

Last weekend we turned off the system so we can add 3 additional disks (going from 9 to 12). However, we did not assign volumes yet, so the 3 new disks are not in use.
A week later, we get a critical alert email from FreeNAS that one of the new disks has unreadable / uncorrectable sectors. I would like to pull this disk out so I can RMA it.

My question is: Do we need to shut down FreeNAS in order to pull out an used disk? There are not any options in the GUI to "eject" it. If the answer is "No", what needs to be done before pulling the drive, and can we insert the replacement disk also without shutting down first?

Thank you.

The instructions for replacing a failed drive are very straight forward, if your hardware supports hotswap you won't need to restart. Here is a link for drive replacement. https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/storage.html#replacing-a-failed-disk

 

[rpc]

Thank you for your quick reply.

The instructions are straightforward for drives in use, and for hot spares. However, this disk has not been used in volumes at all, it is only "recognized" by the system. We are using a SuperMicro 6027R, which allows for hot swap (disks are located in the front bays).

The only options for this disk is "Edit" and "Wipe". I want to make sure we safely eject and replace the disk (aside from powering down the whole system).

I haven't found any documentation or posts that refer to this scenario.

Thank you.

 

[Mlovelace]

Thank you for your quick reply.

The instructions are straightforward for drives in use, and for hot spares. However, this disk has not been used in volumes at all, it is only "recognized" by the system. We are using a SuperMicro 6027R, which allows for hot swap (disks are located in the front bays).

The only options for this disk is "Edit" and "Wipe". I want to make sure we safely eject and replace the disk (aside from powering down the whole system).

I haven't found any documentation or posts that refer to this scenario.

Thank you.

If the disk is not part of a vdev and your system supports hotswap, then yes you can pull the drive and replace it without powering down.

 

[Chris Moore]

I haven't found any documentation or posts that refer to this scenario.

You don't need to take any action in FreeNAS since FreeNAS is not yet using the disk. In a hot-swap bay, the drive can simply be pulled out and the new drive put in. No shutdown, no restart. Even if the drive is in a pool, if you follow the correct replace steps, you can replace drives without shutdown in a system that has hot-swap. I have a system at work that has had five drive replacements since the last time it was shutdown.
One of the replacement drives failed and had to be replaced again.