September 8, 201411 yr So after about 5 years of running my Media Server with no major issues I was doing a parity check a few weeks ago and had 8 errors which were attributed to reallocated sectors on my Parity Drive which had accumulated 32 now. I replaced the drive and all was well for a week then I noticed drive one, as old as my server, was Red Balled. I restarted the server a number of times. I checked the smart report and all was good. I ran the short test and still good. I did a file system check from unMenu and it was good as well. I checked and replaced SATA cables. I checked power cables. Finally I replaced the drive,rebuilt it and I'm back running again. So what could cause the drive to be Red Balled but check good?
September 8, 201411 yr So after about 5 years of running my Media Server with no major issues I was doing a parity check a few weeks ago and had 8 errors which were attributed to reallocated sectors on my Parity Drive which had accumulated 32 now. I replaced the drive and all was well for a week then I noticed drive one, as old as my server, was Red Balled. I restarted the server a number of times. I checked the smart report and all was good. I ran the short test and still good. I did a file system check from unMenu and it was good as well. I checked and replaced SATA cables. I checked power cables. Finally I replaced the drive,rebuilt it and I'm back running again. So what could cause the drive to be Red Balled but check good? A red ball just means that at least one write failed, not that a disk has necessarily failed. This can happen for a wide variety of reasons such as a cable connection being slightly loose, a power spike, etc. Without the syslog from when it happened it is difficult to guess why. Since you seem to have successfully rebuilt onto the same disk it appears that it may have been a 'one-off'. I would just keep an eye on the drive in case it happens again.
September 8, 201411 yr Author No not the same disk, I used a new one... and put aside the original. I have a Sys log, attached, but may be after the fact...and not from the time it happened since I didn't see it for a day or so and my system shuts down at 12:30 am every night. I also have a ups with voltage regulation so a power spike may be a long shot... syslog-2014-09-03.txt
September 11, 201411 yr Author Thanks, that's what I thought, though I'm not an expert reading these reports. I know that when I replaced the drive above it a week before, the Parity drive, the cables got disturbed, though I did re-seat everything and they are locking SATA cables. Who knows what the cause was. It's anybody's guess now..
September 11, 201411 yr http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Troubleshooting#What_do_I_do_if_I_get_a_red_ball_next_to_a_hard_disk.3F
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