How to identify drives in an array

[jamiejunk]

I'm building a warm backup type array with a 24 drive supermicro case as a jbod case. Plugged into a head unit via external sas connector.

I decided to tinker with it a bit before putting it into production. Thought i'd test pulling some drives, replacing them etc. Just to be comfortable for when that eventually happens.

So I pulled one of the drives. Did a zpool status. The drive that was "missing" wasn't what i thought it would be.

So i pulled some more drives and couldn't figure out the rhyme or reason.

Maybe this is more of a hardware question, or a freebsd question. But is their a way to know in the software what drive corresponds with a particular slot in the jbod?

I know that the backplane says the sas device numbers. IE Slot 0 - Slot 23.
But is freenas aware of what drive is in a particular slot? How do you handle pulling the "right drive" when a drive has failed on a large disk array?

 

[cyberjock]

You do what I do with 24 drive:

There's usually a pattern between disk and slots. You either label the disks with serial numbers on the outside of their trays or you shutdown the server and go hunting. There is no 100% sure fire way to match port numbers to hard drive tray or anything like that.

Me, I always do a shutdown so that I can be sure I'm pulling the right drive. Last thing you need is to have one disk that is bad and you just pulled a good disk!

 

[jamiejunk]

I looked into the serial number idea. Testing this out on a 3 drive setup I have at my desk.
So I have a drive with the serial number:
9XH00N93000092363MR8

Here is the output of zpool status:
gptid/ce29ab65-b8e1-11e2-bc5b-003048d690a0
gptid/ced6c035-b8e1-11e2-bc5b-003048d690a0
gptid/cf7570ed-b8e1-11e2-bc5b-003048d690a0
From what I can tell that string doesn't contain the drive serial number. Is there somewhere else to look for the serial number?

Thanks

 

[pirateghost]

Smartctl or in the web GUI

Sent from my Nexus 5