Hello ... My Journey so far ... need help with SMART test result

[LT421]

Hi all. This is my very first post!

I got started on this journey about the middle of 2015. I was talking with a colleague at work expressing my desire to build a Network Attached Storage for all my media (high resolution music files mainly flac and wav, pictures, documents, etc). He suggested to take a look at "FreeNAS" so I started reading the Forums. I read "A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design", the ZFS Primer and various members' build experience posts. Around September last year, I received a promotional email from TigerDirect and saw a Levono ThinkSever TS440 with a 3.2G Xeon cpu, 4GB DDR3 EEC RAM, 4 slot hot swap HDD bay but no HDDs, 5 Sata3 ports, DVD writer, an integrated 1G Intel network interface and Intel HD Graphics, 450W 80 Plus Gold PSU. Price was $299.99. Even though it did not come with an OS and HDDs, I thought that was still a very good price so it pushed me over the edge! I decided then to build my FreeNAS based media server and started buying all the additional hardware. From what I was learning, I decided on a 6 drive RaidZ2 array which I thought was a good compromise for cost, performance and capacity. Since the server only came with 4 hot swappable HDD bays I decided to add another 4 slot hot swappable bay. Here are some pictures of the server and the parts list:

Notice that I purchased the M1015 already flashed to IT-mode with P20 firmware. I initially bought a board that was not flashed to IT-mode. Unfortunately, after attempting to flash it, I got the dreaded "failed to initialize PAL" error message. I tried flashing it using my other two PCs with the same result. Then I frustrated and put the project aside. A few weeks ago, while searching ebay, I found someone selling the board already flashed to IT-mode. So I bit the bullet and paid the extra $50 for the flashed board.

Reading the forums again, I found "Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS 9.10 Configuration Guide" wiki. This is an excellent quide for newbies like me who want to build and setup a FreeNAS server quickly. I recommend it to anyone who is just starting this endeavor. I am currently performing the HDD SMART validation tests. One of the hard drives failed during the tests and eventually FreeNAS made it "UNAVAILABLE". So I replaced it and ran the tests again last night on all the drives. FreeNAS found another disk (NOT the one just replaced) that has "read errors" during the "long" test. Here's the result:

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 280 177365760
# 2 Conveyance offline Completed: read failure 90% 280 182649200
# 3 Extended offline Aborted by host 90% 279 -
# 4 Short offline Completed without error 00% 279 -
# 5 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 242 177378384
# 6 Conveyance offline Completed: read failure 90% 241 182659048
# 7 Short offline Completed without error 00% 241 -
# 8 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 114 177378384
# 9 Conveyance offline Completed: read failure 90% 114 182649200
#10 Short offline Completed without error 00% 114 -
#11 Short offline Completed without error 00% 95 -

However, when I viewed the status under "Storage", it said that the volume is "HEALTHY".
So should this disk also be replaced? All drives are still under warranty.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

 

[danb35]

If the disk is consistently failing SMART tests (which it is), it should be replaced. Note that the disk is failing with 90% of the test still to go--the failure is happening in the first 10%. If it's early enough to have your vendor replace the disk, I'd do that so you'll get a new replacement--if you RMA the disk with the manufacturer, you'll probably get a refurb instead.

 

[LT421]

Thanks danb35 for your reply. I will contact WD today and request an RMA. This situation has made me very concerned about buying hard disk drives from Newegg. I bought the 6 drives from them. One drive arrived DOA and WD replaced it with a refurbed drive. That replacements seems to be working ok. Then I have these 2 drives that both failed the SMART tests. So 50% of the drives bought from Newegg are bad! That's incredibly concerning! Anyone else have similar experience with HDDs purchased from Newegg or other reputable online retailers?

 

[danb35]

The last drives I bought from Newegg were two Seagate NAS 6 TB units, and they were just fine--that was a little over a month ago. Most of the drives I've bought recently were from Amazon. I had a batch of three I bought from them a couple of years ago, of which two were DOA; they cross-shipped new replacement drives immediately at no cost to me. The last time I had to do a return with Newegg, they weren't as accommodating, but that's been several years ago now. But try exchanging with Newegg first, if you're within their exchange period.

 

[LT421]

Those drives were bought a year ago so can't do an exchange. Anyway, I just finished talking with a "WD Warranty" customer support rep. The whole experience was actually pretty good, I must say. The rep answered my call pretty quickly and he was very polite and helpful. I explained what's wrong with the drives, gave him the S/Ns, he looked them up to confirm they're still under warranty which there were and went through the RMA process pretty quickly. I should get the replacement drives within 3 business days. It was actually pretty painless. I'm impressed with WD's customer support (for now :))! Btw, the replacement drives will inherit the remaining warranty of the drives being replaced. You don't get a new warranty (3 yrs for the Reds), which I guess is fair.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Looks like a good server and you are doing a great job of reading and testing your hardware. Keep up the good work.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[LT421]

Thanks SweetAndLow ...