Anyone ever see kernel panic when trying to dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX

 

Simply running a zero (using dd) on any of the 4 disks connected to my motherboard SATA ports is causing kernel panic after 20 mins or so.  I had initially tried to zero 4 disks at once.  Then I tried two.  Nope.  Then I tried the other two.  Every time it seems to crash after 10-20 mins.  So I tried running the pre-clear disks tool from CA today: same story (I assume) - as I am remote and my server no longer responds.

 

I was previously running unRAID for about a week without issues.  I hadn't done much with it - still in trial mode, deciding what OS to use long term.  Perhaps a clue is that my previously parity HDD reports 1400 relocated sectors in SMART.  The other 3 disks report 0.

 

I fear it is related to hardware since it is a newly built system, and is not completely vetted - Gigabyte Mobo Z170X chipset, i5-7500 (supported after BIOS reflash).  The case uses a 8-bay hotswap SATA backplane (2x Dual sata ASM1061 cards, 4 useable SATA on mobo)  Dual 256G m.2. cache drives (consume 2 SATA channels).  The 4 disks are 4TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives.

 

Perhaps I will try to boot another OS locally and see if the same thing happens.

I could also try moving the disks to the other 4 bays in case it is a SATA controller issue on the mobo.

I could make better guesses with some logs....

 

Is the kernel panic exactly the same? If so, probably not defective hardware.

 

If it is a bit random, I would check cooling.

The Preclear Plugin might supply more diagnositics.

After kernel panic, the system is frozen.  I have to reboot... so where would I find a log when that happens?

 

After kernel panic, the system is frozen.  I have to reboot... so where would I find a log when that happens?

syslog is in RAM (/var/log) so doesn't survive a reboot. If you install Fix Common Problems plugin and put it in Troubleshooting mode it will continuously save syslog to flash.