Re: [PLUG] WD 4TB Red drive failure...

[Michael Christopher Robinson]

Tests by Preheim suggest that my drives are actually fine.  So I'm
looking at a software problem.  I upgraded to FreeNAS 9.10 U3, I 
think the problem lies there.  Seems iX Systems is having trouble
and from a web search for FreeNAS 10, I found out that the release 
was abandoned.  FreeNAS 11 is the next major release, but it isn't
out yet.  I guess it isn't stable yet.  The next version of FreeNAS 
is supposed to support Docker, whatever that is.  I used the jails 
of FreeNAS 9.10 to run PLEX media server and it worked until a few
weeks ago.

Is there an ideal Linux based alternative to FreeNAS?  The major
benefit of FreeNAS is that it is supposed to be optimized for storage
management and ZFS is supposed to be an especially good file system for
archival purposes.  Another advantage of FreeNAS is that it installs to
a cheap USB memory stick.  Another positive is that FreeNAS can be run
headless.  The support for jails of FreeNAS 9.10 allows one to run PLEX
media server safely.

I'm very concerned that FreeNAS worked fairly well until I upgraded 
it.  I'm also wondering if FreeNAS is open source or not.  FreeBSD
based OSes don't have to be open source if I'm not mistaken.

What Linux distributions are ideal for building network attached
storage systems?  Is there a well supported Linux distribution 
that runs: Apache, Samba, Plex media server, ZFS or something better,
Dirvish or something similar for backup, and RAID all from an 8 gig
USB memory drive?  Maybe using standard ext3/4 file systems is a 
better idea.

I wonder if the software upgrade to 9.10 U3 is the problem or if the
USB memory key corrupted?

 --  Michael C. Robinson
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Re: [PLUG] WD 4TB Red drive failure...

[Michael Christopher Robinson]

On Wed, 2017-05-10 at 19:39 -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> On Wed, 10 May 2017 19:04:26 -0700
> Nat Taylor  dijo:
> 
> > I don't think ssds last longer than regular drives.  
> 
> Is this true? Is there any data to back up this statement? Is there
> any
> data at all about the relative lifespan of an ssd compared to
> physical
> drives?
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A google article suggests that data corruption and not drive 
failure is the greatest issue with SSDs.  If the data corrupts, 
thatis equally as bad as a drive failure.  Intel is working on 
a new technology using Ferro Something for a semiconductor, it 
is ultra low power and more reliable potentially than current 
solid state flash memory technologies.  Perhaps someone else
can fill in the gaps with what Intel is working on.
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Re: [PLUG] WD 4TB Red drive failure...

[John Jason Jordan]

On Wed, 10 May 2017 19:04:26 -0700
Nat Taylor  dijo:

>I don't think ssds last longer than regular drives.  

Is this true? Is there any data to back up this statement? Is there any
data at all about the relative lifespan of an ssd compared to physical
drives?
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Re: [PLUG] WD 4TB Red drive failure...

[Nat Taylor]

I don't think ssds last longer than regular drives.  You would be better
off setting up RAID, with 3x 2TB (or 4TB) drives for every 2TB (or 4) of
data, using either RAID 4 or RAID 5.  An external NAS RAID enclosure might
be the way to go.  I haven't done this, but I should.

On Wednesday, May 10, 2017, Keith Lofstrom  wrote:

> On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 12:16:28AM -0700, Michael Christopher Robinson
> wrote:
> > I suspect that my two Western Digital 4TB Red drives are only 3-4
> > years old.  I'm running FreeNAS 9.10 U3.  I'm getting an error
> > finding the ZFS filesystem that is striped across the two drives.
> > Thought maybe I had done a mirror, no such luck.  I suppose I can
> > take these drives to someone who can do some tests to find out if
> > one or both of them have gone bad.  Can they be repaired?  How
> > about the data on them?
>
> Any data that you do not have two copies of, you have zero
> copies of.  Backups.  http://dirvish.org
>
> Keith
>
> --
> Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com 
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Re: [PLUG] WD 4TB Red drive failure...

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 12:16:28AM -0700, Michael Christopher Robinson wrote:
> I suspect that my two Western Digital 4TB Red drives are only 3-4 
> years old.  I'm running FreeNAS 9.10 U3.  I'm getting an error 
> finding the ZFS filesystem that is striped across the two drives. 
> Thought maybe I had done a mirror, no such luck.  I suppose I can 
> take these drives to someone who can do some tests to find out if 
> one or both of them have gone bad.  Can they be repaired?  How 
> about the data on them?

Any data that you do not have two copies of, you have zero
copies of.  Backups.  http://dirvish.org

Keith

-- 
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Re: [PLUG] WD 4TB Red drive failure...

[Josiah Luscher]

My goodness if you got 4 years out of a WDRed you got lucky.  HD's are not 
forever.  Have you seen the Backblaze hard drive reliability data?  You might 
find it interesting, i do. :-)

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-q1-2016/



On May 10, 2017 12:16:28 AM PDT, Michael Christopher Robinson 
 wrote:
>I suspect that my two Western Digital 4TB Red drives are only 3-4 
>years old.  I'm running FreeNAS 9.10 U3.  I'm getting an error 
>finding the ZFS filesystem that is striped across the two drives. 
>Thought maybe I had done a mirror, no such luck.  I suppose I can 
>take these drives to someone who can do some tests to find out if 
>one or both of them have gone bad.  Can they be repaired?  How 
>about the data on them?
>
>I'm debating the wisdom of buying any hard drive, especially one 
>that is larger than 2 terabytes.  The failure rate of large drives 
>is too high if they fail in under 3 years.  NAS is usually deployed 
>to make large amounts of data or backups available over a local area
>network.  Failing in under 2-3 years is not acceptable for backup
>purposes.  SSDs seem to be faster and more robust, but they are very
>expensive at 10x the cost of hard drives.  How many writes can an SSD
>take compared to a WD Red drive before it fails?  How many times can
>you read a file before there is a failure between a 2TB WD Red hard
>drive verses a 2TB Samsung 860 EVO SSD?  The former costs about 
>$89.99 new, the latter at least $500 new.  Does the SSD last 5x as 
>long as the large high end hard drive?  How repairable is the SSD 
>when it fails?
>
>Increasingly, marketing hard drives as being robust seems to me to be
>nothing more than marketing.  I don't care if you call your hard drive
>Red, Green, Black, Blue, or Purple.  The result is the same, the drive
>fails in under 5 years.  Although, I have some Green drives that seem
>to do better than that.
>
>Paying $500 for an SSD to put movies on is expensive, but spending $90
>every 2-3 years could also be quite expensive.  There's the time to rip
>the movies again that also has to be considered which is worth
>something when you have to buy a new blank hard drive.
>
>I may have mixed up which SATA cable is connected to which hard drive,
>but it is highly likely that at least one of the 4 TB hard drives isn't
>reading which makes mixing them up kinda irrelevant.  I have 2 4 TB
>hard drives, 1 2 TB hard drive, and 1 500G hard drive.
>
>I'm bidding $500 on an SSD which I'll pay via paypal credit if I win,
>but I'm not thrilled about this.  That is really expensive for me right
>now.  Going the hard drive route, especially if I decide we need to do
>RAID or have offline spares, that gets really expensive really fast
>also.
>
>I can't convince my father, even myself, that hard drives are a good
>idea.  I doubt I can convince him that a 2 TB SSD is an acceptable
>option either.  Beyond 2 Terabytes, SSDS are prohibitively expensive. 
>Couldn't you make a high capacity 5.25" full height SSD cheaper than 
>a 2.5" half height high capacity SSD?  Why is it that practically all
>SSDs you can get will fit in a laptop when desktops have a lot more
>room?  If SSDs cost 2x what hard drives do, it wouldn't make sense to
>buy hard drives anymore.  At 10x the cost, it isn't so clear.
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-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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[PLUG] WD 4TB Red drive failure...

[Michael Christopher Robinson]

I suspect that my two Western Digital 4TB Red drives are only 3-4 
years old.  I'm running FreeNAS 9.10 U3.  I'm getting an error 
finding the ZFS filesystem that is striped across the two drives. 
Thought maybe I had done a mirror, no such luck.  I suppose I can 
take these drives to someone who can do some tests to find out if 
one or both of them have gone bad.  Can they be repaired?  How 
about the data on them?

I'm debating the wisdom of buying any hard drive, especially one 
that is larger than 2 terabytes.  The failure rate of large drives 
is too high if they fail in under 3 years.  NAS is usually deployed 
to make large amounts of data or backups available over a local area
network.  Failing in under 2-3 years is not acceptable for backup
purposes.  SSDs seem to be faster and more robust, but they are very
expensive at 10x the cost of hard drives.  How many writes can an SSD
take compared to a WD Red drive before it fails?  How many times can
you read a file before there is a failure between a 2TB WD Red hard
drive verses a 2TB Samsung 860 EVO SSD?  The former costs about 
$89.99 new, the latter at least $500 new.  Does the SSD last 5x as 
long as the large high end hard drive?  How repairable is the SSD 
when it fails?

Increasingly, marketing hard drives as being robust seems to me to be
nothing more than marketing.  I don't care if you call your hard drive
Red, Green, Black, Blue, or Purple.  The result is the same, the drive
fails in under 5 years.  Although, I have some Green drives that seem
to do better than that.

Paying $500 for an SSD to put movies on is expensive, but spending $90
every 2-3 years could also be quite expensive.  There's the time to rip
the movies again that also has to be considered which is worth
something when you have to buy a new blank hard drive.

I may have mixed up which SATA cable is connected to which hard drive,
but it is highly likely that at least one of the 4 TB hard drives isn't
reading which makes mixing them up kinda irrelevant.  I have 2 4 TB
hard drives, 1 2 TB hard drive, and 1 500G hard drive.

I'm bidding $500 on an SSD which I'll pay via paypal credit if I win,
but I'm not thrilled about this.  That is really expensive for me right
now.  Going the hard drive route, especially if I decide we need to do
RAID or have offline spares, that gets really expensive really fast
also.

I can't convince my father, even myself, that hard drives are a good
idea.  I doubt I can convince him that a 2 TB SSD is an acceptable
option either.  Beyond 2 Terabytes, SSDS are prohibitively expensive. 
Couldn't you make a high capacity 5.25" full height SSD cheaper than 
a 2.5" half height high capacity SSD?  Why is it that practically all
SSDs you can get will fit in a laptop when desktops have a lot more
room?  If SSDs cost 2x what hard drives do, it wouldn't make sense to
buy hard drives anymore.  At 10x the cost, it isn't so clear.
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