FreeNAS 8 - Failing RAID 5 Drive - View Discs Inaccessible

[rsconsulting]

Howdy All - first post.

Have a FreeNAS box. Was 8.03. UFS RAID5/Stripe Set with 4 X 3TB drives.

One drive is FAILING reporting controller timeouts and SMART realloc errors on console.

I upgraded the box to 8.2 RELEASE yesterday, before attempting to REPLACE the failing drive by: removing drive from View Discs, replacing drive, adding drive to RAID5/stripe set.

Subsequent to doing an "in place upgrade" (i.e.: using ISO/Disc to upgrade the 8.03 on the existing flash/boot) I can no longer access the VIEW DISC tab - it comes up BLANK. The "Active Volumes" Tab still shows the array as "healthy" despite the failing drive.

So at this point, I cannot REMOVE the failing disc to replace it.

So, my problem is TWO-FOLD.

A - replacing the failing disc and allowing the array to rebuild (hopefully without loss of EXISTING DATA - which I can SEE when browsing from a Windows Box on the LAN, but cannot COPY OFF the NAS).

B - Fixing the Web Console so the Storage tabs function again.

Are there TTY CONSOLE COMMANDS to remove and replace the failing disc, then allow the degraded array to rebuild?

I'm pretty sure this is NOT A ZFS array, as the ZFS Status commands on the console, say there IS NO array.

Any assistance is appreciated.

Regards,

Rick Stern

 

[rsconsulting]

Conversely. Is there a way to add an additional drive to the NAS and "internally copy" some of the CRITICAL DATA off the array with the failing drive?

This NAS is used to backup servers onsite. SERVER BACKUP HISTORY is at 2 months, and is not critical to recover. There is about 500GB of data from the LAST NAS (that was copied to this newer NAS), that is critical to recover.

If I can get THIS DATA off the array - then dumping the volume, replacing the failing drive, and creating a NEW ARRAY would be less problematic.

When I try to copy data OFF the array, to a workstation on the LAN - the transfer speed is SLOW, and eventually times out with an error.

Strangely though - the backups are STILL COMPLETING and NEW DATA IS BEING WRITTEN TO the NAS.

Regards,

Rick Stern