SMART Read Errors on Boot Drive :-(

[Joe Mc]

"CRITICAL: March 20, 2018, 8:17 p.m. - Device: /dev/ada0, Read SMART Self-Test Log Failed"

Just got my system re-installed to bare metal and fully up-and-running again last week after moving late last year; unfortunately now it looks like my old clunker Intel 80GB SSD that I'm using as the boot/install drive is starting to crap out. The question is... is there any easy way I can simply "mirror" that whole disk to another drive, without having to re-install and re-configure everything? I have another (unused) 512GB SSD installed in /dev/ada1, although I'm sure I'll waste a lot of space doing that.

(I originally tried to simply use the USB drive as my boot disk, but that wasn't happening. I have a motherboard with a buggy BIOS that will not boot from USB if it sees too many SATA devices, even if they are on my PCIe controller....)

In a perfect world someone has certainly run into this before and there's a simply 'dd' command I can do to mirror /dev/ada0 -> /dev/ada1, power-down, swap the physical drives and voila? I'm not too thrilled to waste even more space on a much newer/nicer 512GB SSD, but it's all I've got handy at the moment. I'm actually not sure how urgent this is, since the system seems to be functioning fine aside from a couple syslog messages:

Mar 20 20:16:29 freenas ahcich0: Timeout on slot 7 port 0
Mar 20 20:16:29 freenas ahcich0: is 00000000 cs 00000080 ss 00000000 rs 00000080 tfd 48 serr 00000000 cmd 0000e717

 

[Ericloewe]

is there any easy way I can simply "mirror" that whole disk to another drive

Yes, but scare quotes are not supported:
http://doc.freenas.org/11/system.html#mirroring-the-boot-device

(This naturally assumes that the data is still intact)

 

[Chris Moore]

I've got handy at the moment. I'm actually not sure how urgent this is, since the system seems to be functioning fine aside from a couple syslog messages:

Mar 20 20:16:29 freenas ahcich0: Timeout on slot 7 port 0
Mar 20 20:16:29 freenas ahcich0: is 00000000 cs 00000080 ss 00000000 rs 00000080 tfd 48 serr 00000000 cmd 0000e717

What makes you say the problem is the boot drive causing this erro?

 

[Joe Mc]

What makes you say the problem is the boot drive causing this erro?

`CRITICAL: March 20, 2018, 8:17 p.m. - Device: /dev/ada0, Read SMART Self-Test Log Failed`

/dev/ada0 = my 80GB SSD boot/install drive
/dev/ada1 = my unused 512GB SSD
/dev/daXX = my data/ZFS drives, separate controller

Is there a non-intrusive way I can ensure my data is still in-tact on the boot drive? Would an fsck suffice? I did receive a rather awkward e-mail from FreeNAS this morning:

"No /var/log/mount.today

No /var/log/dmesg.today

-- End of security output --"

My new plan is that I plan to purchase and install two 120GB SSDs; hopefully I can mirror* the 80GB -> 120GB spare using what Eric linked above, then boot-up on the 120GB and mirror that to the second 120GB future spare.

(* = "Scare Quotes" removed!)

 

[Chris Moore]

`CRITICAL: March 20, 2018, 8:17 p.m. - Device: /dev/ada0, Read SMART Self-Test Log Failed`

/dev/ada0 = my 80GB SSD boot/install drive
/dev/ada1 = my unused 512GB SSD
/dev/daXX = my data/ZFS drives, separate controller

Is there a non-intrusive way I can ensure my data is still in-tact on the boot drive? Would an fsck suffice? I did receive a rather awkward e-mail from FreeNAS this morning:

"No /var/log/mount.today

No /var/log/dmesg.today

-- End of security output --"

My new plan is that I plan to purchase and install two 120GB SSDs; hopefully I can mirror* the 80GB -> 120GB spare using what Eric linked above, then boot-up on the 120GB and mirror that to the second 120GB future spare.

(* = "Scare Quotes" removed!)

From the things you are saying, it is apparent that you have never read through the manual. It is a simple, very simple, thing to mirror the boot drive in FreeNAS. It can be done during installation or a mirror drive can be added later.

In your situation, with a drive that is already showing damaged contents, what you should do is backup the running config.db and any scripts that you have saved to the boot media. Then do a new install to the new boot media and restore the config.db. All configuration settings are in the config.db. If you do this correctly, your system will be on new mirrored boot media and all settings will be back. Last time I had to do it, I spent less than 20 minutes and the biggest part of that time was waiting for the system to shutdown or reboot.

So far, just this week, this is the second instance of having failed boot media. We talk about this more than almost any subject on the forum. If you do a search, you will find dozens or maybe even hundreds of times where the "how to" has been explained; and it is in the manual.

 

[Ericloewe]

Is there a non-intrusive way I can ensure my data is still in-tact on the boot drive?

If a scrub passes, everything is okay. Even if some errors pop up, we may be able to recover from them.

Would an fsck suffice?

fsck is for lesser filesystems. ZFS doesn't have fsck.

In your situation, with a drive that is already showing damaged contents,

Well, we haven't determined that that is the case, yet.

 

[Joe Mc]

I just ran a manual scrub and it passed. No new alerts or syslog messages since the ones I've posted above as well.

And yes, I didn't read the manual ... for this. To be fair, it doesn't really say what to do if you're already having problems, so I would've had largely the same questions. I did skim the forum and noticed the other active SMART boot error thread complete with walls of text and cellphone screenshots of a monitor console screen and it looked obviously way more severe than what I was dealing with. I'll admit I should've looked a little deeper, but thanks to both of you for the help and clarity regardless.