Thread: Installing Freenas

I forgot to comment on this bit:

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

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other than removal of the drive except for backup-- how do you plan for this ****??

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You have a NAS setup!

Same here.
I've always run two external USB drives for my photos.
I also have one internal drive of the same photos .. ie. my photos in triplicate.
Reason is, I actually prefer to keep two backups of the photos, and sync them every end of year.
I once was in the middle of a backup/sync process, and the destination drive dropped out. Turned out to be a stupid JMicron controller dropping in/out.
Fixed that started again.
But unknowingly, I had 16 corrupted raw files already transferred across.
The backup started again from after those corrupted files tho.
Much later, I had HDD issues of the Seagate kind, and the backup I then relied on was the one with the (unknowingly) corrupted raw files.
I only discovered this years later(going by the date stamp of the files).

So now while I keep backups, they are different backups, kept physically separate both in content and location.

Hopefully for your sake all three drives are fine, and the actual problem is what I've seen(a couple of times now) with fluctuation power from the PSU.
Replace the PSU with a known good one(rather than assumed good one) and your striped data should be intact.

SSDs draw about 1/10th the power of a HDD.
7200 RPM drives need more power than 5400RPM drives too.

So we know that one of your drives (the green) is a 5400 RPM type. Are the other two 5400's or 7200's?

hmm,, the spanned ones are both( 1TB and 500 gb) WD Blacks so? 7200?
I've plugged the green one into a another PC and while the bios reads it correctly as a WD, it also faults it as an error.

nearly $400 bucks for that psu,, I wouldve been better off buying an el-cheaper $80 one every year for the length of ownership!
I think NOW the purple antec PSU is fine,, I might test it again with those modular cables and a good hdd and see..

I think God was concerned I might actually get freenas to work,,

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

one was a green WD 3TB for total backup,
the other two were-- wait for it,, spanned.

At the risk of stating the obvious and being a smart arse after the fact, spanning is great for write speed and capacity but no good for data integrity compared to mirroring as you've unfortunately found.

As for the multiple disk array, back in the old SCSI days there was DS or delayed start settings for a multiple drive array so that on startup there wouldn't be a major current surge as all the drives wound up at once. Depending on the drive/controller you had three or four delay settings separated by 10mS (from memory) or so to stop PSU shock on boot up. I reckon I've seen the same option on some newer non SCSI gear but isn't very common on the non server gear I fiddle with these days. This may be what has done you in here.

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

other than removal of the drive except for backup-- how do you plan for this ****??

We had a recent near total loss of data due to a 'cryptolocker' type virus recently. The only thing that saved us was multiple backups but it was a very close thing.

SWMBO has over 60K photo's plus journals and other documents she's written over the last 30+ years, irreplaceable data. Her PC's working drive was backed up to an additional internal 'archive' drive which was in turn backed up to a Netgear Stora NAS with mirrored drives which was backed up to an external USB drive.
Got the game skun you'd reckon ?, not really when you consider they're all connected together along with my PC via the same network.
The infection started with me opening an infected email file on SWMBO's PC which proceeded to corrupt ALL jpegs, docs etc on the PC including the 'archive' drive then to the NAS where it corrupted 75% of files on it as well as files on my PC. Fortunately it didn't make the jump from the NAS to it's external drive which is what saved the day. We were very, very lucky..

Our current setup has yet another layer of backup PLUS an external drive that lives in the shed which is connected to nothing but bought in once a month or so for incremental backup. The NAS now needs a password to write to it.

There is no such thing as being anal about backup(s). You have my sympathy Pedro. I would suggest you pack up your storage equipment (PC & HDD's) and take the lot to a reputable data recovery service, it won't be cheap but it's better than the alternative.

Deano

ring nathan @ zero alpha data recovery if you need data recovery done...

one three hundred 001 211

as stated, multple external hard drive backups are the only real way to ensure you get to keep all you need to keep and utils like karens replicator are one the the best ways to do it so it is easy, reliable and a cinch to recover...

as for protecting your self against the cryto lockers, even tho they attack dropbox you can "usually" get the stuff back quickly by right clicking on the file and selecting restore previous version... lots of people using it much to my dismay but it has saved some peoples bacon...

I think blacks are 7200s, greens are 5400s

power requirements should be listed for both 12v and 5v rails .. something like 0.55A and 0.7A respectively for a green(more for a black, but I haven't got one bare to check) .. so I think about 10+W is about what they need.

I have dozens of HDDs, 3 x Seagate 2.5"ers, 2x Seagate 3.5"ers .. all simply dead .. bloody seagates!
I do have only 1 WD, and it's unique in that it's the only WD I've ever had fail on me, and even then it was under duress.
My son's lappy 2.5" black, that he whacked hard(I heard it!) and killed it.
I later replaced it with my old glacial 5400 Toshy until he learned his lesson.
Eventually replaced with a nice speedy SSD tho.

So the take: WDs seem to be indestructible on the whole.

The el cheapo PSU idea could be a good one to go with for testing/temporary purposes( I may get one again soon for my old PC as a temporary measure) .. but long term, they do use more power than a high quality name brand.

I have one of those home power meter thingys, and I do remember the old one used to draw more power according to the meter.

FWIW: the old(now dead) PSU brand I had was a Shaw brand, got from MSY for about $30ish(maybe less) back then.
I just noted now, that MSY have a Shaw Evo 665/775/875/975 watt PSUs listed at $23/28/33/43 respectively, so they not going to break the bank.
I always get the call .. oh, my computer is not working can you come and have a look, so $33 to have a spare 875W PSU ready to go at the drop of a hat, it won't kill me.

If I find that this FreeNAS is something that my sis could benefit from(for her business), I'd then get a quality (platinum level) PSU for it and she can pay for it all!

But I now recommend a quality PSU for a main PC. The difference mainly in noise and from what I remember power draw is the key.

The one thing I really really hated about the Corsair I got tho was the waste of $s on the packaging. I'd have preferred a $50 price reduction rather than a velour pouch for it that I'll never use, or the 5 million extra cables I'll never use(I can't imagine anyone using), and the ludicrously 3x oversized box it came in!

I've had(still have) an Antec PSU too(even older 32bit ancient) PC I remember they were good too. The case is awesome(but very outdated now.
Strange if it were the Antec PSU supply side. But, you never know.
Even stranger that IT would somehow damage all three HDDs in one foul swoop.
Never heard of that!
But I've seen a couple too many PSUs vary too much on the power to the board side, not to be weary of them.

anyhow, hope it all works out for ya soon.

Don't use freenas for a business, personally don't use freenas for anything really, unless you run a hardware raid on the back end before freenas touches it. Software raid = bad doo doo. How much is a dataloss worth to the business, then use that to calculate how much you can spend on a solution, and even after all that dont forget backups. I know the Synology NAS support Amazon glacier for backups.

I have about 20tb nas (Synology) here running all 4tb seagates in raid5. I get the drives from the Seagate essentials external enclosures. They are cheaper, have better warranty and are a sub breed made to work in an external enclosure, I also distributed the purchases at different stores to if there is a latent defect the chances of loosing them all at once is lowered.

Dont buy cheap PSU, cause when they inevitably fail they can surge the pc and take out the rest of the system, old trick you can tell the quality of a PSU by weight (as long as the chinese haven't put a brick in there).

Just my 2 cents.

The irony is not lost on me that after reloading (many times) various windows over the years I load nothing on Cdrive anymore,,
and now windows survives--