Hardware Failure

[kzkydh]

Help. My FreeNAS ASRock C2750D4I system board failed. I can get into IPMI, but no POST. The old system has 12 drives with my life on them. I am trying to determine the best course of action to leverage another server I have and recover all my data. I have a Supermicro A1SAM-2550F, but it only has 6 SATA ports. I read many forum posts that lead me in different directions. My system did not use hardware RAID and was ZFS.

Options:
A) Move the USB drive containing FreeNAS to the new server. Add a PCIE card with more ports. Connect all drives and FreeNAS will figure it out.
B) Move the USB drive containing FreeNAS to the new server. Add 2 new larger drives to the new system. Connect 4 of the old system drives at a time and copy all data to the 2 new drives. Once done, connect the other 4 drives and move that data.
C) Buy a new C2750D4I system board and keep the system in-tack.

Questions:
1) Should I go option A or B?
2) If option A,
2a) should I buy an LSI card or a PCIE SATA III card to add SATA ports?
2b) Will FreeNAS see the old system drives on the SATA card as the old system saw them?
3) If option B,
3a) Will this work with the way ZFS spreads data?

Thanks

 

[pschatz100]

I know there have been a lot of failures with the ASRock boards and many forum members have contacted ASRock to RMA their boards, even when out of warranty. If they are willing to work with you, that might be your easiest choice.

Question 1:
Option A will work, however most experienced forum members will suggest using an HBA rather than a PCIe card with sata ports. You didn't say how your ZFS volumes were configured, so it is impossible to say whether or not Open B will work. If your pools span more than four disks, then Option B will not work.

Question 2a: an LSI card would be a much better choice. You can search the forum for advice about which models to buy and setting them up - you want to run them in IT mode.

Question 2b: FreeNAS will figure it out.

Question 3a: Probably not. See my comment above.

It would be wise for you to read up on ZFS pools and how they are configured. Check out some of the posts in the "New to FreeNAS" section.

 

[Jailer]

Be careful if you choose option B. Depending on your pool layout, this will either work or fail. Knowing a little more about your pool layout would be helpful.

 

[danb35]

this will either work or fail.

Isn't that true of pretty much everything, though?

 

[Jailer]

Isn't that true of pretty much everything, though?

Good point. Guess that's why I'm a prison guard not a rocket surgeon.

 

[Heracles]

Hi Kzk,

Considering your original server was using 12 drives, I highly doubt that your exact pool layout will allow Plan B. An example of case where Plan B would work is if you had two 6 drives RaidZ2 in mirror. But considering how unusual and inefficient such a layout would be, I am pretty sure whatever yours is, Plan B can not work.

So what you need is to plug all your data drives in a single server. To replace the motherboard would be a safer way to proceed than using USB interfaces and expansion cards, but at the end, to reach the data, you must access all your drives at once.

Also, take this experience as lesson about how important backups are...

Good luck recovering your data. You are not in a too bad situation, but still at risk...

 

[kzkydh]

Thanks for the replies! I have all the data backed up on another NAS and with a backup service. However, restoring the main NAS would be less headache than rebuilding and copying all data around. I tried to get ASRock support, but their site is less than useful and will not accept the C2750D41 or any other combination to attempt to get support. Lesson learned, stick to Supermicro and never buy anything from ASRock again. Based on your responses above, I will order a new MB and hope for the best. Thanks again for taking the time to help!!!

 

[JohnnyGrey]

... Lesson learned, stick to Supermicro and never buy anything from ASRock again...

Just to chime in on this comment, I don’t think the blame lies with ASRock on this one. If it’s the failure that I’ve read about a lot over the past couple years, this is a defect with Intel’s SoC. The Avoton seemed promising especially considering its low power draw, until all the failures started happening.

Anyway, good luck with recovering your data! And good on you for having backups!

 

[kzkydh]

Just an update... Thanks for all the valuable feedback! Great to have everyone looking out for each other. I went with option A (A) Move the USB drive containing FreeNAS to the new server. Add a PCIE card with more ports. Connect all drives and FreeNAS will figure it out. ) Took about 30 minutes to move the drives to the Supermicro server and the system booted without any issues. All connected devices had access as they did before with zero issues. Great job to the FreeNAS team! So impressed that I am sending them $$. I also contacted ASRock and submitted an RMA. Although I have not heard back on the status of the RMA, I am hopeful that they will resolve the issue. I will report back once I know.

Although I have 3 copies of my data (another NAS that syncs, external drives in safe, backup service), getting my primary NAS back up an running ensured all my connected devices had the right data and access.

Thanks again for all the support!