I had been having some slowdown issues in one area: installing docker images.  I think now that the highwater has shifted writes to my second data drive, it has revealed some (bad) issues with the second drive.  I recently added some things to my nextcloud, and next thing I know the drive fails to write and pretty much booms.  I'm in emulated mode now, and have a 4tb red on the way.  Until it arrives, is there a way to minimize chance of my currently working 2tb data failing?  

 

Also, it was recommended that I post fresh diagnostics here to be checked over.  (perhaps to see if the drive is really failing or if its another issue entirely?)  So here it is.  If there are problems that show in the logs, would anyone mind letting me know what they are and what they mean so that I can better handle things on my own?  

 

TIA for any advice and guidance. 

tower-diagnostics-20180309-1534.zip

Looks more like a connection/power issue, but since the disk dropped offline there's no SMART report, you'll need to reboot or power cycle the server and post new diags.

Here are the diags from after reboot, but the drive shows as not installed so i'm guessing you hit the nail on the head.  Going to shut it down and check cables.  (weird that it was fine and working then.. Not.)  

tower-diagnostics-20180309-1604-afterrestart.zip

THANK YOU!  I switched sata ports, and wiggled the cable. (my suspicion is that its the cable,) started up again, and the drive was found. It showed up in "unassigned devices" and I had to manually add it back in to the right spot, but it seems to be rebuilding now.  Hoping I can find the right stuff to replace this cable assembly.  Till then I won't breathe.  

Here is the most recent diagnostic.  

tower-diagnostics-20180309-1626-AfterSataPortSwitch.zip

SMART looks fine, lots of CRC UDMA errors, so probably a bad cable or connection, make sure notifications are enable, I would recommend replacing the cable to rule it out, but since it's rebuilding and no issues so far let it go on.

No easy way to replace the cable, for me at least.  I'm in a wheelchair and this system is HEAVY and hard to shift around.  Would require a bit of disassembly to get it done, so i'm doing an end run instead.  I have an icydock on the way to go into the 3 5 1/4 bays, i'll shift the drive up there and ignore the problematic built in slot.  Its much easier to pop an icy dock in for me than it would be to get it moved around to get the cable swapped.  (The design is kinda destined for failure on that particular slot anyway, it makes a really sharp crimping style 180 turn to reach the first sata port on the board.  )  This will work out perfect. I'll end up with a potential 8 drives (connected to the h310) and cache drive can be stuck anywhere as long as I can get power to it, and hook it to the onboard ports.  

 

I'll be careful to not wiggle anything between now and hardware, and pray that it doesn't go wonky again.