intermittent freeze ups and reboots

[SpazzyC]

What's Happening:
I am trying to back up a Windows machine. After a random amount of time while running rsync, the freenas (and plex jail) disappear from my network. Sometimes the freenas reboots itself randomly, sometimes I am able to access the physical console, sometimes the system becomes completely unresponsive.

Configuration:
FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201503070129
2 zpools: freenas-boot, Backups5
Backups5 has 6 datasets: Movies2, Music, Pictures, TV, Videos, jails
Directory created /mnt/Backups5/Remote for mounting external stuff
Plex plugin installed in a jail
Use: Home media storage and backup

What I am doing when the problem occurs:
I run these commands from the console, not the web gui:
mount_smbfs -I home1 //user@home1/Movies /mnt/Backup5/Remote
rsync -av --progress /mnt/Backups5/Remote /mnt/Backups5/Movies2

In the middle of copying, the transfer will just stop. Sometimes the system will reboot, sometimes I will get a network error, sometimes a disk write error, sometimes the system won't respond at all, and I'll have to physically power it off.

The last time the system stopped, I wasn't even copying. I was accessing the Plex server, and it dropped. On the console setup page it showed "No interfaces configured", but ifconfig showed the IP address configured correctly.

What I have:
An official current generation FreeNAS Mini from iXsystems with 6 4TB WD Red drives added in (4 internal, 2 from SATA cables run through the PCI space on the back.
Only 1 network infterface connected @ Gigabit to a TP-Link TL-SG1016D. No LAGG configured.

What I have tried:
I have run short and long smart tests on the hard drives which came out clean.
Scrubs of the data have shown some corruption, but I'm thinking that that might be coming from the Windows side as the disks are old (which is why I'm trying to back them up onto something reliable)

Now what:
I've reached a level of frustrating ignorance, where I don't know how to troubleshoot this. Or more infuriatingly, where I don't know where to start learning on how to troubleshoot this.
I have attached the freenas generated debug information, in hopes that someone can see what I've missed.

Thank you.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, there's 2 potential problems here...

1. The Mini is really only tested to work with 4 regular disk (the trays) so doing the 2 extra disks out the back really is an untested configuration. I would expect that what you did *should* work, but as nobody has done what you've done and nobody is having your problems its either a random coincidence or an indicator that "you are a bad boy".

2. Generally, random reboots and such are a sign of a hardware failure and are not software. The failure may be because you are using ports that haven't been tested with FreeNAS extensively and are unreliable. I really can't say as there isn't specific info on what controller, port, etc. Even the BIOS settings may not be appropriate for your actual configuration and so that is a potential problem.

What I would do if I was you is submit a ticket at support.ixsystems.com and include the debug file and as much information as you can about your setup. The ports that your hard drives are connected to should be included also so that iX can see if they can reproduce the problem in-house.

 

[Tywin]

1. The Mini is really only tested to work with 4 regular disk (the trays) so doing the 2 extra disks out the back really is an untested configuration. I would expect that what you did *should* work, but as nobody has done what you've done and nobody is having your problems its either a random coincidence or an indicator that "you are a bad boy".

Could also be the power supply, if the one selected for the Mini doesn't have much margin above the "nominal" configuration of four disks.

 

[SpazzyC]

Thank you, I have now put in a ticket to iX as well, and have received a great response. The extra 2 disks are only a recent addition, within the last month. I have been experiencing the troubles longer than that, and I have been trying to resolve them myself with no luck. The disks are on a separate, spare, 600W power supply. And I forgot to put in that the pool is made of mirrored pairs.

 

[cyberjock]

Could also be the power supply, if the one selected for the Mini doesn't have much margin above the "nominal" configuration of four disks.

The Mini uses a 250w PSU so 6 disks + the Atom CPU should be okay (even though SpazzyC said he has an external PSU).