Strange Smart Array p410i problem
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@flomer said:
I guess ZFS is out of the question anyway, since I don't have direct access to the individual drives.
ZFS doesn't need direct access to anything. Using hardware RAID or virtualization don't block ZFS in any way.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@flomer said:
But, isn't virtualizing FreeNAS something that is generally adviced against?
Based on what? The rule is "virtualize everything." I know of no reason that FreeNAS should be physical.
I have read on the FreeNAS forums that they advice people not to virtualize, but it might have been specifically about ZFS.
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@flomer said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@flomer said:
But, isn't virtualizing FreeNAS something that is generally adviced against?
Based on what? The rule is "virtualize everything." I know of no reason that FreeNAS should be physical.
I have read on the FreeNAS forums that they advice people not to virtualize, but it might have been specifically about ZFS.
I'm a bit confused at the moment... I was under the assumption that ZFS needed raw access to drives. For SMART?
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@flomer said:
By using several 2 TB disks and LVM?
No LVM in FreeNAS. That's a Linux system. You would do this with ZFS. But yes, groups of 2TB virtual disks, until someone surpasses that limitation.
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@flomer said:
I have read on the FreeNAS forums that they advice people not to virtualize, but it might have been specifically about ZFS.
I would avoid those forums. I've been dealing with horrible information from them for years now. You should read this article, it explains why people are saying that. It isn't because they don't want you to be virtual, it's because they are "religious zealots" about using ZFS as software RAID. They don't mention that, though, instead they give bad general advice without context. They leave out the parts that matter (that they are trying to sacrifice stability and reliability to promote the use of ZFS as a software RAID system at any cost.)
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@flomer said:
I'm a bit confused at the moment... I was under the assumption that ZFS needed raw access to drives. For SMART?
ZFS needs access if you want it to get the SMART data or to replace your RAID controller. Neither of these are things that you want. That's the careful marketing of the FreeNAS forums. The statement sounds reasonable but the "if" is a negative. You have enterprise hardware RAID and you want that reading the SMART data, not FreeNAS. You don't want FreeNAS having access to the drives, that would be bad.
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ZFS is great when you want or need software RAID. It's probably the best software RAID option on the market. But it is not common for SMBs to want software RAID and when they do want it, it is normally because they are cutting costs and wanting to save the hundreds of dollars that quality hardware RAID costs. But you already have enterprise hardware RAID and to get SMART data to FreeNAS you don't just need to bypass it, you need to replace it which will cost even more money. That doesn't make sense.
You have an excellent enterprise storage server, trying to use ZFS to replace the parts that you already have will just undermine you. The FreeNAS forums assume that you care about using ZFS more than you care about anything else (business goals, cost, common sense, etc.) so they write the forums with that assumption in mind and it doesn't often come out as useful advice to people looking to actually implement FreeNAS in a business.
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OK, now I have a bit of reading to do... Thank you for all the information! I might return with a question or two after doing some reading
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No problem.
If you are comfortable with Linux, I would also suggest strongly considering dropping FreeNAS or FreeBSD at all. FreeBSD is not ideal as a storage platform. OpenSuse would be my first choice if you are comfortable working on a Linux server.
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Hello,
I have the same problem with 2 DL380G7-machines.
They are both exactly identical, because we use Marathon High-Availibilty VM.
Transfer-rates from/to the VMs were bad and I also noticed the blinking mentioned by OP.The first logical Drive on each server consits of 4 original HP-SAS-Drives 450GB.
Smart-Start tells me, these drives are online for 44 months, but are Ok and should NOT be replaced...but these drives are all blinking about every second.
All drives simultanously, all drives green - no amber, red or blue - just on and off and on and off...all the time.The second logical drive on each server consits of 4 original HP-SAS-Drives 300GB.
Online for 16 months, according to Smart-Start (these have been added to the servers later - so that seems correct).
All drives good...and the LEDs of these drives are all four constant green. No blinking...just straight green (all VMs are down, so there is really no activity at the moment.)
THAT´S how it´s supposed to be, I think.But what is wrong with the first logical drive?
I cannot find a hint, that any of its HDDs has a failure.
A controller-error? Only on Port 1 and in 2 different servers at the same time? Not very realistic...
Are the old drives somehow incompatible to the new ones?? But there are 2 independent RAIDs and they´re not mixed within a RAID.
How can that be?So what should I do?
Replace all 8 SAS-HDDs just to "give it a try"? Quite expensive...Any suggestions??
Please?!?! -
I would post a new thread that is dedicated to your issue as it will be extremely difficult and confusing to separate your question and detail here from the details of the person whose thread it is. It will be much cleaner and less confusing that way.
What OS are you running?
Drives blinking just means that they are being accessed, that alone is not a problem; it just indicated activity.
What issue are you seeing? Just slow access rates?
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@aroelle said:
Are the old drives somehow incompatible to the new ones??
Drive ages do not cause incompatibilities. Drives are not compatible or not compatible with each other.
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@aroelle said:
But what is wrong with the first logical drive?
That would be the question. What makes you feel that something is wrong?
