Hard drive goes offline unexpectedly.

[odedia]

Hi,

I am having problems with my NAS4FREE install, one of the drives keeps going offline without me asking for it. typeing zpool status gives an all green at first:

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nas4free: ~ # zpool status
  pool: tank
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub in progress since Sat Apr  5 04:30:02 2014
        119M scanned out of 3.60T at 1.98M/s, 529h34m to go
        0 repaired, 0.00% done
config:

	NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	tank        ONLINE       0     0     0
	  raidz1-0  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada0    ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada1    ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada2    ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada3    ONLINE       0     0     0

Then after a few hours/days, ada3 gets removed:

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nas4free: ~ # zpool status
  pool: tank
 state: DEGRADED
status: One or more devices has been removed by the administrator.
	Sufficient replicas exist for the pool to continue functioning in a
	degraded state.
action: Online the device using 'zpool online' or replace the device with
	'zpool replace'.
  scan: scrub in progress since Sat Apr  5 04:30:02 2014
        2.27T scanned out of 3.60T at 69.3M/s, 5h35m to go
        0 repaired, 63.06% done
config:

	NAME                     STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	tank                     DEGRADED     0     0     0
	  raidz1-0               DEGRADED     0     0     0
	    ada0                 ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada1                 ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada2                 ONLINE       0     0     0
	    8077065232798403421  REMOVED      0     0     0  was /dev/ada3

I did NOT remove the device. could it be a faulty drive/cable? I run this to check for issues with the drives:

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nas4free: ~ # dmesg | egrep 'ad[0-9]|cd[0-9]' 
ada0: Previously was known as ad4
ada1: Previously was known as ad6
ada2: Previously was known as ad8
ada3: Previously was known as ad10
ada3: Previously was known as ad10

That's the only issue I am suspecting - ada3 appears twice on this list. But I don't know if that's an issue or not.

SMART status is good for all 4 drives.

Bringing the device back online works just fine as well, resilvering takes a few minutes.

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nas4free: ~ # zpool online tank /dev/ada3
nas4free: ~ # zpool status
  pool: tank
 state: ONLINE
status: One or more devices is currently being resilvered.  The pool will
	continue to function, possibly in a degraded state.
action: Wait for the resilver to complete.
  scan: resilver in progress since Sat Apr  5 14:08:32 2014
        174G scanned out of 3.99T at 3.36G/s, 0h19m to go
        29.2M resilvered, 4.27% done
config:

	NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	tank        ONLINE       0     0     0
	  raidz1-0  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada0    ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada1    ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada2    ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada3    ONLINE       0     0     0  (resilvering)

Any ideas what causes this? Do you think it's a hardware issue or a software issue?

I'm thinking maybe it is related to a SATA cable/connector?

Thanks for your advice.

[apollo567]

Does ur Sata cables have a metal latch ?

[odedia]

Maybe, will have to open the box again and see. Why? what is the theory?

[apollo567]

If they don't have one, the connect is sometimes not stable.
Had the same and got it solved in using Sata cables with a metal latch

[odedia]

Well, what have we here... I opened up the power connecor going to ada3 and it seems like one of the pins is loose. I can't put it back correctly.

Surprisingly, I was able to find a spare cable without issues (you can never find them when you need to right? ).

I'm currently resilvering, will report back.

Thanks for all the help!

[apollo567]

That's new, this sort of problem usually have been problems with Sata cables...