SOLVED Replacement Drive not showing in GUI

[cgaines78]

OK my FreeNAS server had a drive #2 failure and went into degraded state. I ordered a HDD and installed in affected drive bay after removing the old drive. When I rebooted server it still shows degraded and doesn't show the new drive so I can't click "Replace" when I go under "Volume Status".

System:
Dell PowerEdge 1950 II 2x Dual-Core 3.0Ghz w/ 8GB RAM
Has 2x 2TB Drives in Raid-1 Mirror format for a 2TB storage.

Sincerely,

Chris Gaines, NREMT, CFEI

 

[HoneyBadger]

You were supposed to go into the GUI first and OFFLINE the drive before physically removing it.

http://doc.freenas.org/11/storage.html#replacing-a-failed-drive

That model of server also has a RAID card by default. Are your drives connected to it, or to onboard SATA/a replacement HBA?

 

[cgaines78]

I have screwed up then. Oops!! Can I reinstall old drive then OFFLINE it? The drives are in the only two HDD bays on front of server but not in raid from hardware just through FreeNAS. They show as two separate drives in FreeNAS normally.

Thanks Again..

 

[cgaines78]

OK Honey Badger, I think you were onto something. The drives are connected to the onboard RAID controller and I forgot I had each independently set up as a virtual drive so I could control the RAID with FreeNAS since I wasn't sure how a drive error would be reported by the server since it's hid away. When I installed the new HD I failed to go into the RAID controller and create a VD with it so no OS would have seen it.

Thanks for the help!


-Chris

 

[HoneyBadger]

I had each independently set up as a virtual drive so I could control the RAID with FreeNAS since I wasn't sure how a drive error would be reported by the server since it's hid away.

This is the part where you say "oops" because that's pretty much the number one thing not to do with FreeNAS or any other ZFS system - don't use a RAID card.

It results in potential failure points as well as risking data loss. Unfortunately because your drives are formatted with the PERC RAID controller it isn't as simple as moving them to a SATA port now.

 

[cgaines78]

Apparently I didn't know that when I built this system. Also don't know how I could bypass the RAID controller on this Dell Poweredge 1950. Never had a problem with it till now. Thanks.

 

[Kevin Horton]

To sort out the RAID card issue, would it be possible to install an HBA, set up in IT mode? Then connect a new disk to the HBA, and use it to replace one of the existing disks. After the resilvering is done, remove the original disk, wipe it, connect it to the HBA, and use it to replace another of the original disks. Repeat until all disks on the RAID card have been replaced. Keep the last one as a spare.

 

[HoneyBadger]

To sort out the RAID card issue, would it be possible to install an HBA, set up in IT mode? Then connect a new disk to the HBA, and use it to replace one of the existing disks. After the resilvering is done, remove the original disk, wipe it, connect it to the HBA, and use it to replace another of the original disks. Repeat until all disks on the RAID card have been replaced. Keep the last one as a spare.

Yes, this would work following the guidelines for replacing a functional disk with a larger one (8.1.11 I think in the support doc?)

 

[Kevin Horton]

And if the server has functional SATA ports, there wouldn't be a need to add an HBA.