Weird sound from WD Red 3.0TB - once every hour

[morxy49]

Just recently built my first NAS running FreeNAS. I decided to only plug in one of eight drives to begin with, so i can play around and learn how everything works.

One thing i noticed was that once every hour, every hour, at the exact same time (xx:02) the drive made a really weird sound that lasted for about 15-20 seconds.
I assume that FreeNAS does some kind of hardware check or something, but i'm new to this, so i want to be sure.

Here's a video of the sound. (Raise the volume)

Software: FreeNAS-9.2.1.2-RELEASE-x64
Hardware:
ASRock C2550D4I
Silverstone DS380
Silverstone SFX ST45SF-G 450W
5x WD Red WD30EFRX 64MB 3TB (1 connected)
3x WD Green WD30EZRX 64MB 3TB (0 connected)
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile DDR3 PC12800/1600MHz CL9 2x4GB (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) (will replace these soon)

 

[joeschmuck]

Sounds like you have some job that runs each hour like maybe Plex and have it rescanning the media every hour. That was a for instance.

 

[morxy49]

Sounds like you have some job that runs each hour like maybe Plex and have it rescanning the media every hour. That was a for instance.

I don't have any plugins installed. There's no one using the NAS now, since it's not done yet, so it's not because it's accessing data.

Can i check somewhere what checks are being done reguraly?

 

[joeschmuck]

Also, I would recommend running all your hard drives just so you can rule out infant mortality sooner than later.

 

[joeschmuck]

Yes, look at what CRON jobs are running. There must be something that runs at 2 minutes after the hour. Are you running 9.2.1.2 or 9.2.0 ? If you are starting new then my personal recommendation is to use 9.2.0 only because there are some minor issues still with 9.2.1.2 that might turn you off.

 

[joeschmuck]

And would you briefly describe your system makeup, I doubt it will help in this situation however you should post that whenever you ask for help for something that doesn't work as expected.

 

[morxy49]

And would you briefly describe your system makeup, I doubt it will help in this situation however you should post that whenever you ask for help for something that doesn't work as expected.

Will do! Check the first post in a moment.

 

[joeschmuck]

Please don't think that I'm treating you like an idiot when I ask what appear to be stupid questions, I have no idea your level of knowledge with respect to FreeNAS so I treat everyone as if they know nothing. It really helps to avoid assumptions.

Where do you have the FreeNAS OS loaded? A flash drive of some sort or could it be the 3TB hard drive? And do you have the 3TB HD setup as a ZFS or UDF format?

 

[morxy49]

Please don't think that I'm treating you like an idiot when I ask what appear to be stupid questions, I have no idea your level of knowledge with respect to FreeNAS so I treat everyone as if they know nothing. It really helps to avoid assumptions.

Where do you have the FreeNAS OS loaded? A flash drive of some sort or could it be the 3TB hard drive? And do you have the 3TB HD setup as a ZFS or UDF format?

No worries :) i'm new, so just treat me like an idiot ;)

The OS is on a 4GB SanDisk Cruzer flashdrive, The 3TB HDD currently connected is ZFS.

 

[morxy49]

Update:
I checked the CRON, but theres nothing there.
But when i checked under S.M.A.R.T tests there was a sheduled test once every hour. this could very well be it.
I removed the test, so now i just have to wait and se if it occurs in an hour.

If this is it, is it something to worry about? It seems kinda weird that a S.M.A.R.T test would make a sound like that.

 

[joeschmuck]

I'm certain that was the issue. A SMART test runs a diagnostic test on your hard drive, part is electrical and part is reading from the drive. My opinion is to setup a short SMART test once a day and a long SMART test once a week.

 

[morxy49]

I'm certain that was the issue. A SMART test runs a diagnostic test on your hard drive, part is electrical and part is reading from the drive. My opinion is to setup a short SMART test once a day and a long SMART test once a week.

Ok :) sounds like it's completely normal for the drive to make these sounds then?
Does the smart test in someway hurt the drive? Since you recommend it only once a day.

 

[joeschmuck]

Ok :) sounds like it's completely normal for the drive to make these sounds then?

YES

Does the smart test in someway hurt the drive? Since you recommend it only once a day.

NO, it's no different than you just accessing the drive to read/write data under normal use, it's just in my opinion needless to run it hourly.

You should read up on exactly what SMART Testing does for you, it's not as good as most people think it is. I could get long winded here and tell you all I've read and my conclusion but you should read that for yourself. This is an industry standard so a Google search should produce good results.

Once you have done that you may end up running a RAIDZ2 realizing the benefits it brings, especially if you plan to store a large volume of data and especially using 3TB drives. But that is another thread.

 

[morxy49]

YES
NO, it's no different than you just accessing the drive to read/write data under normal use, it's just in my opinion needless to run it hourly.

You should read up on exactly what SMART Testing does for you, it's not as good as most people think it is. I could get long winded here and tell you all I've read and my conclusion but you should read that for yourself. This is an industry standard so a Google search should produce good results.

Once you have done that you may end up running a RAIDZ2 realizing the benefits it brings, especially if you plan to store a large volume of data and especially using 3TB drives. But that is another thread.

My goal when i have learned everything i need to get started "for real" is to run the 8 3TB drives in RAIDz2.
I will google the SMART test and read a bit about it, but could you explain shortly what RAID has to do with SMART?
As far as i know, SMART only keeps data about the disk itself, not it's "neighbors"?

 

[joeschmuck]

SMART tests will tell you when you have impending doom or doom has already occurred and the damage is done. This is something you will find out when reading up on SMART and that the design is intended to give you "UP TO" (not at least) 24 hours notice before a failure. RAIDZ2 means you have up to 2 drive failures without losing data and in a 3TB drive situation you need to take into account resilvering time and on a 3TB drive, that can be a long time. So now when you have a SMART failure you can make an assumption that either you already have a failed drive or it will fail very soon and you need to take care of it. That is all I was trying to get across.

 

[morxy49]

It solved the problem! thanks joeschmuck :)
Now i just have to solve a bazillion more problems, then i'm up and running ;)

 

[joeschmuck]

Good luck and I know you said in your first posting you would be replacing the RAM, hopefully it will be with ECC RAM.

 

[morxy49]

Good luck and I know you said in your first posting you would be replacing the RAM, hopefully it will be with ECC RAM.

Ofcourse :) I haven't decided which model yet, but it's going to be 2x8GB Kingston ECC RAM. If you have some suggestions on what i should buy, i would be glad :)

 

[joeschmuck]

Buy what is compatible with your MB. 1333MHz is fast enough, you don't need 1600 or anything crazy.

 

[morxy49]

Buy what is compatible with your MB. 1333MHz is fast enough, you don't need 1600 or anything crazy.

ok, thanks :)
Btw, this is a bit off topic, but i think it's so small it doesn't deserve its own thread ;)
Do you know how i can connect a USB printer to my NAS and share it over the network, with print server? I read something about CUPS, but i have no idea what that is.
All i could find via Google was the command for installing it on ubuntu ;)