Start Fresh With HDDs

[MichaelGMorgan]

I've had some issues with a lot of drives. I had 8x 3TB Toshiba P300, 3 of which have been returned to supplier for refund. I replaced these with 3x 3TB WD Red drives.

I've put all these 8 drives together into a new build, all with difference hardware (again consumer grade, non-ECC, etc.), and now I'm having issues again. One of the brand new WD Red drives is showing as faulted - I've swapped cable and the issue doesn't follow the cable, it stays with the drive. One of the Toshiba drives is unavailable and I'm getting SMART errors (seek error rate is particularly high) on some of the others. I've spent hours swapping cables, performing drive replacements, waiting for re-silvering, long SMART tests, etc.

I'm fed up! All I want is a simple, reliable storage solution to keep my files on.

These drives were pulled from the previous failed FreeNAS system and now are showing signs of failing here in this build.

Can someone tell me how I can completely wipe these drives so I can start fresh.
I then want to run each of them through a lengthy testing period to ensure they're good to go!

Once I'm happy the drives are good, I'll then consider buying a server grade motherboard, 16GB ECC RAM, etc.

Thanks

 

[nojohnny101]

Please post system specs as per the forum rules.

Have you done proper burn-in of your drives according to the resources section of this forum? Have you done any testing of your memory or stress test your CPU?

Check out this resources for properly burning in your hardware.

 

[Spearfoot]

There is also a disk-burnin resource here ("Github repository for FreeNAS scripts, including disk burn-in") that may be handy.

 

[Stux]

Burn in the disks.

How are you powering all those disks?

What's your PSU?

 

[eldo]

Depending on your last setup ventilation, you may want to check the smart max temp history.

Also, I bought 6 WD REDs, and had 2 fail in less than a year. One DOA one 9 or 10 months later.
33% failure sucked, but the 6 I have now are trucking along happy

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

 

[BigDave]

How are you powering all those disks?

What's your PSU?

This is an excellent question!
@MichaelGMorgan did you keep the PSU from your original build and reuse it to
power the newest build? Dirty power can cause a plethora of issues and the heat
history suggested by @eldo would be important as well.

 

[joeschmuck]

Here is what I'm hearing... You are having hard drive issues but you have not posted the output of anything with exact data of the failures. It's very difficult to diagnose problems without specific data so I would recommend you do the following:

The first two have already been recommended to you. If you have already run step 3, post that now.
1) Run Memtest86 to ensure you have no RAM issues. Run it for a few days.
2) Run a CPU stress test like Prime95 for at least 30 minutes.
3) Run a SMART Long test of all of your hard drives and output the complete output for smartctl -x /dev/ada?
4) Take a look at the Hard Drive Troubleshooting Guide (see link below) in the Resources section.

If you want a stable system then you need to have stable hardware. Regardless of the condition of your hard drives if you plan to run a NAS you will need the proper hardware. Before buying hardware you should ensure what your use case is in order for you to get what you need.

 

[russnas]

I couldn't find any information other than some people reporting it due to sata cables or heat (7200rpm) but here is a youtube video about his freenas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmeBoVo95tw

With your psu, check the reviews online or
http://www.jonnyguru.com