From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Barrett Lewis Subject: Re: Mdadm server eating drives Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2013 10:48:59 -0500 Message-ID: References: <51B896A2.9090105@websitemanagers.com.au> <51BA7B28.9030808@turmel.org> <51BB8A67.5000605@turmel.org> <51BB8B86.9050803@turmel.org> <51CC72A4.4040508@jungers.net> <51D233A5.504@hardwarefreak.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Return-path: In-Reply-To: <51D233A5.504@hardwarefreak.com> Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: stan@hardwarefreak.com Cc: "linux-raid@vger.kernel.org" List-Id: linux-raid.ids After sending the last email I went out and bought 2 new WD reds, and a new motherboard. I came back and in those 2 hours all but 1 of my drives failed to the point of being unable to read the superblock so it really seems like my array is ended On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote: >> I noticed one drive was going up and down and determined that >> the drive had actual physical damage to the power connecter and >> was losing and regaining power through vibration. > > This intermittent contact could have damaged the PSU. You've continued > to have drive and lockup problems since replacing this drive with bad > connector. I hadn't thought of it until you said so but I bet you are right about the iffy connector. It certainly seemed as if I never had an issue with the array for 8 months, and then suddenly everything got unstable at once, and since then I've lost atleast 6 hard drives. > > The pink elephant in the room is thermal failure due to insufficient > airflow. The symptoms you describe sound like drives overheating. What > chassis is this? Make/model please. If you've installed individual > drive hot swap cages, etc, it would be helpful if you snapped a photo or > two and made those available. > > It is also possible that there were cooling issues. The case is an NZXT H2. It has some fans blowing directly on all the hard drives, but there were a few times I have to admit I took the fans off to work on things and forgot to put them back on for a few days, coming back to find them very hot to the touch. I would have mentioned that earlier, but a data recovery place told me that it was unlikely that would be a culprit (after they had my money). I don't have any drives in special cages but here's a pic anyway. The two fanboxes that sit in front of them are taken off. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1w3WvCHlYUWRVhWOVd0Qmt1TUk/edit?usp=sharing Maybe thats all academic at this point. I guess i'll have to rebuild my server from scratch since all my disks seem destroyed and I can't trust the mobo, cpu, or psu. Atleast I can memtest the ram. The psu wasn't dirt cheap, Thermaltake TR2 500w @ $58. Should I buy all new everything? If so, while I'm at can you suggest a set of consumer level hardware ideal running a personal mdadm server. Powered but not overpowered, reliable not bleeding edge. If I need 6-8 sata ports, should I do onboard or get a controller? I still have one backup allthough I'm very nervous now since it's on a 3 disk RAID0, just asking to implode (created in an emergency).