[Novalug] Seagate HD Failures (WAS best hard disk setup for home file server?)

[Bryan Seitz]

I've got 8x 1.5TB Seagates in a ZFS RAIDZ configuration with no issues so far. 

(knock on wood)

da0: <ATA ST31500341AS CC1H> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device
da1: <ATA ST31500341AS CC1H> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device
da2: <ATA ST31500341AS CC1H> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device
da3: <ATA ST31500341AS CC1H> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device
da4: <ATA ST31500341AS CC1H> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device
da5: <ATA ST31500341AS CC1H> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device
da6: <ATA ST31500341AS CC1H> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device
da7: <ATA ST31500341AS CC1H> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device

storage# zpool list
NAME      SIZE   USED  AVAIL    CAP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
storage  10.9T  5.96T  4.92T    54%  ONLINE  -

That being said, ZFS has saved me many times when I've had hardware issues.  I highly recommend it
for a home fileserver these days.  Either FreeBSD (my choice) or (Open)Solaris are great options.

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:37:35AM -0400, Roger W. Broseus wrote:
> Richard,
> 
> As Jon said, there was new about a lot of Seagate HD failures. See
>     http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/17/0115207
> you might look a bit more to read about this to see if there's a way to
> overcome your apparent data loss.
> 
> Seagate probably owes you gig-time! (Seagate is off of *my* list for a
> long time - who knows what junk might be sitting on the shelves, etc.)
> 
> Good luck.
> -- 
> Roger Broseus
>    RogerB at bronord.com
>    www.bronord.com
> 
> Ertel said:
> 
> Message: 6
> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:38:00 -0400
> From: Richard Ertel <richard.ertel at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Novalug] best hard disk setup for home file server?
> To: Novalug <novalug at calypso.tux.org>
> Message-ID:
>         <5f6820c80910130638w2b9e4e1cm140afa82a2e1ceaf at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> in light of the current problems i am having with my home file server,
> i want to reconsider my choice for how i configured hard disks in my
> server.
> 
> as said before, i currently have two 1.5 TB drives and two 1.0 TB
> drives, all standard 3.5" internal disks.
> 
> four 1.0 TB partitions are in RAID-5 configuration, and the remaining
> two 500 GB partitions are RAID-1. these two arrays are combined via
> LVM into one logical volume of 3.5 TB.
> 
> my current situation has the new brand new 1.5 TB drives dying, which
> of course kills all my data. they are identical drives (seagate), same
> model number, maybe same manufacturing batch. both dying at the same
> time.
> 
> does anyone have any experience RAIDing external USB drives in linux?
> should i expect reliability to increase if i move all 4 drives to 4
> external SATA to USB enclosures (5.25" enclosures with fans)? are
> these enclosures suitable for 24/7 operation? would read and write
> speed suffer (all transfers are over gigabit network)?
> 
> if all those USB drives running through a USB hub to a server is ok,
> then what about ditching my tower and running them all to a netbook as
> a server? i've seen that argument made once before, citing built-in
> ups (battery), built-in monitor, low power draw and other factors as
> big benefits to a netbook as server.
> 
> or am i worrying too much and what i have on my hands is just a fluke,
> and in the future i should mix drive manufacturers/models to avoid
> simultaneous failure?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Novalug mailing list
> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/novalug

-- 
             
Bryan G. Seitz