Unable to restart the array after power failure

[MasterPepe]

Hello all,

I have since a short power failure problems to start my array again. 
Since this is the first test server, I decided to install everything from scratch again.

I wiped my hard drives with the precleaning tool and formatted them with xfs. I also did an extended SMART test on all the hard drives. This was also error free.

I must say that I have a somewhat unusual setup. 
There is a cache pool with 2 mirrored SSDs installed. In the array I have 8 hard disks. Of these, 4 are connected in the server enclosure via SATA2 and 4 are connected in an external enclosure (Fantec) with USB3.
One of the internal disks is used as parity.

The first time I installed it, it worked fine. And since I address the hard disks individually, it even runs relatively performant.

After a short power failure I got the error that 4 hard drives (the USB3 connected) showed an error. They could no longer be connected to the array.

Now I'm standing there and can't get the array to run with empty disks. It starts to write the parity, after 0.8% it aborts. It comes the message with errors and the logfiles are overfilled. Apparently there is an abort at the USB. 
I can't stop the array then either. The disks are shown twice. Once in the array and once as Unasignd Mounted. I can only get to the disks when I reboot the server. This is still possible via the UI.

I will leave the diagnostic and the logfile here. Hopefully someone can help. I would be very disappointed if I had to split the array.

Thank you all for the help.
MP

 

syslog.txt.zip

tower-diagnostics-20230310-2114.zip

 

[JorgeB]

USB is not recommended for array or pool devices.

[MasterPepe]

Thanks for the help.

I was hoping that it might work after all.

 

The Fantec Case has also a e-Sata connection. Unfortunately I couldn't make it work with the e-Sata connection of my motherboard.

I have tried all combinations of BIOS settings.

 

On my motherboard there still a sata connector free. It was for a CD-Rom drive and has a cable with different color.

 

Option 1

Do I could may use this empty plug with an Sata Hard disk and then make at least an array with 5 disks?

 

Option 2

Do I could may use this empty plug with an Sata to e-Sata adaptor and then try to connect my Fantec thru e-Sata?

 

Have anyone experience with Sata connectors that came from the manufacturer in this configuration?

Do somebody has any suggestions, that do not involve spend a lot of money for new hardware?

 

Thanks again.

 

[JorgeB]

eSATA is fine if connecting one port to one device, it's not if used with a SATA port multiplier, i.e., a single eSATA port on the host connected to multiple devices.

[MasterPepe]

Do Sata multipliers in general generate Problems or just decrease performance? 

The performance on this disks shouldn't be an issue for me. But may to build the array.

[itimpi]

8 minutes ago, MasterPepe said:

Do Sata multipliers in general generate Problems or just decrease performance? 

In theory they should only be a performance issue, but experience has shown they can also sometimes cause other issues such as spurious drive failures.

[MasterPepe]

Oh, then was the idea to put my 4 drives in a external Fantec Case not a really good idea.

Could I may use it as a Pool device? Not Cache, just a BOD or even every disk in a separate Pool, but without the safety ob an array parity. Just for Backups and less important stuff.

[JorgeB]

You can try, some work better than others, we just don't recommend in general.

[toddcarson]

Do Sata multipliers in general cause Difficulties or merely degrade performance?

There shouldn't be a problem for me in terms of performance with these disks. Nevertheless, in order to construct the array.

 

 

 

[JorgeB]

2 hours ago, toddcarson said:

Do Sata multipliers in general cause Difficulties or merely degrade performance?

Both.

[MasterPepe]

Well then... Thank you all for the help.

 

I will try to make a 5 disk array.

Hopefully I could use my other 3 disks as a type of Backup pool or for less important things.

 

...by the way, It is possible to write the files first to a cache pool and then the mover will move it to another pool? Or it works just with an array? 

[JorgeB]

7 minutes ago, MasterPepe said:

by the way, It is possible to write the files first to a cache pool and then the mover will move it to another pool? Or it works just with an array? 

At the moment mover can only move data between array and a pool, but pool to pool is planned for the near future.