Re: Thinking of using ZFS/FBSD for a backup system

On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 03:23:37PM +0100, aslam_mohamed_at_wordbank.com wrote:
> Something interesting, I just slot couple of 1TB SATA in to the same 
> FreeBSD machine and re-created the zfs pool (this is just to make sure 
> that without firewire the ZFS can  work well in FeeBSD) . When I reboot 
> the machine I see the following appears on booting... This is the same 
> thing appeared before with Firewire!!
> 
> ad4: 76324MB <HDS728080PLA380 40Y9028LEN PF2OA65A> at ata2-master SATA150
> ad8: 953869MB <Seagate ST31000340NS SN05> at ata4-master SATA150
> ad10: 953869MB <Seagate ST31000340NS SN05> at ata5-master SATA150
> **GEOM: ad8: corrupt or invalid GPT detected.**
> **GEOM: ad8: GPT rejected -- may not be recoverable.**
> **GEOM: ad10: corrupt or invalid GPT detected.**
> **GEOM: ad10: GPT rejected -- may not be recoverable.**
> SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
> Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad4s1a
> WARNING: ZFS is considered to be an experimental feature in FreeBSD.
> ZFS filesystem version 6
> ZFS storage pool version 6
> 
> Now I am running Rsync to backup all the file servers and it had done up 
> to 1TB without complaining.. Currently, the Zpool status looks pretty OK..
> 
>  pool: backup
> state: ONLINE
> scrub: none requested
> config:
> 
>        NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
>        backup      ONLINE       0          0              0
>          ad8       ONLINE          0            0             0
>          ad10      ONLINE        0           0              0
> 
> errors: No known data errors
> 
> I don't know in the future there will be any issue because of this Geom 
> messages... is there any known problem like zfs/geom/gpt 
> incompatibility?.. is it the ZFS causing this error(!) messages?..any 
> thoughts?...

Those:

GEOM: ad10: corrupt or invalid GPT detected.**
GEOM: ad10: GPT rejected -- may not be recoverable.**

messages are probably because you moved disks from Solaris and Solaris
creates GPT labels that are treated that way by FreeBSD.

I've heard about problems with using disks connected via firewire.
Not sure if you tried to connect them directly already or not, but if
you didn't, please try it.

-- 
Pawel Jakub Dawidek                       http://www.wheel.pl
pjd_at_FreeBSD.org                           http://www.FreeBSD.org
FreeBSD committer                         Am I Evil? Yes, I Am!