terskac Posted August 20, 2006 Report Share Posted August 20, 2006 Hi all, I am losing my mind with constant SMART failures. I have a Granite Digital 2 bay hot swap Firewire system. I get Smart failures almost all the time. Especially on new back ups and or when the volume is large like more than a couple gigs. I have 5 Macs being backed up over a LAN. I have 3 backup sets for 3 scripts. The backup main computer was an iMac G5 until it was stolen last week. Now I have a new iMac dual core Intel. One back up drive doesn't seem to do it yet. I have tried: 1. New cables 2, A new Power supply and case for the Granite Digital unit since it started choking on startup. 3. Two new 300 GB drives for the 2 back up sets that always fail. 4, Now a new Mac that I managed to restore the user folder too with only losing 1 day's data since the backup script died on the night of the break in. None of this has helped stop the drive failures. When the Smart failure happens Retrospect freezes and so does my entire system until I turn off the back up unit. This gives me a warning that I disconnected the drive incorrectly but its the only way to unfreeze my system. Force quitting the Finder and Retrospect doesn't help unfreeze things. The drives disappear from the desktop when the failure happens but I can see it and remount it with Disk Utility but it then freezes me up so much I have to unplug the computer. Granite Digital said to try Disk Warrior on my internal drive when I still had my G5 but it was stolen before their update arrived in the mail. Disk Warrior won't work on the intel machine. I was lucky I got any data restored after the theft and now I don't get any good back ups so I'm living on borrowed time. Help Please!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted August 20, 2006 Report Share Posted August 20, 2006 Quote: I get Smart failures almost all the time Can you describe this more completely? - From where are the failures being reported? What hardware/software is responsible for monitoring the drive SMART info? Is it built into the Granite Digital case? - Is the drive that is reporting the failure the Source or the Destination for Retrospect (it sounds as if it's the latter)? AFAIK, Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology is a hardare thing; I'm not sure how DiskWarrior would help. There are also a couple of dozen different attributes that SMART can detect. - What make/model of drives are you using? - Are your drives configured as some sort of RAID? If the drives freeze on use, it would imply a hardware problem. Granite Digital has a reputation for high quality, but this sounds like a problem with the FIREVue (if that's the model you have) system. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terskac Posted August 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2006 The device is a Firevue 2 Drive model. They are the destinations of the backup sets. The SMART failures are indicated on the LCD's of the swappable drives. I just bought a new case from Granite Digital because the old one had a hard time starting up the drives. The problem still persists. I'm not sure what brand the drives are but I will check when I get back to my office Monday. I bought the 3 original drives with the system from Granite digital a couple years ago. The 2 new drives I just bought at Staples as they were on sale for $99.00 for 300 gigs. They fail too. Its really annoying because it hangs my entire computer until I turn off the power of to the Firevue. Even Disk Utility freezes from this problem. I can't use it to unmount the failed drive. Granite Digital tech support said this problem is usually caused by the source drive and that if I ran Disk Warrior on it it would probably fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted August 21, 2006 Report Share Posted August 21, 2006 Quote: it hangs my entire computer until I turn off the power of to the Firevue. Even Disk Utility freezes from this problem. OS X is very unforgiving when a volume suddenly disappears. >I just bought a new case from Granite Digital because the old one had a hard time starting >up the drives. The problem still persists. What does this mean? Was "the old one" a FIREVue? Did it exhibit the same problem as the one you're describing? > Granite Digital tech support said this problem is usually caused by the source drive >and that if I ran Disk Warrior on it it would probably fix it. With all due respect to the fine folks at Granite Digital, that sounds like crazy talk to me. Retrospect is only writing to two files (assuming it's a File Backup Set) on the Destination drive. And while corrupt directory information on the Source might cause the program to burp, I'm hard pressed to believe that it could casue the Destination to exhibit hardware failures. - Does the failure happen when it's backing up the same Source every time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terskac Posted August 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2006 Yes the old one was a Firevue also. When I turned on the power the green LED would flicker and I could hear the drives spin, stop, spin ,stop etc. Granite Digital said the P/S was weak and they offer a new case with a new power supply so I could swap out the other innards into the new case. This solved the weak power supply issue but I still get the drive failures. I am not using file backups. I am using removable disk backups where the entire drive is used for the destination. I'l try creating a file backup instead and see if that makes a difference. My Tuesday back up set got corrupted anyway so I need a new one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted August 21, 2006 Report Share Posted August 21, 2006 Quote: I am not using file backups. I am using removable disk backups where the entire drive is used for the destination. Which writes only _one_ file to the Destination device Backup Set Member. Of course, the answer to my prevous question "Does the failure happen when it's backing up the same Source every time?" would be helpful in proving the null hypothesis (or something like that). Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terskac Posted August 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2006 I'm not sure if it happens to the same source every time. I don't think so but it is possible. It happens mostly on the work group server but I think it happens on backing up the clients sometimes. I can't be certain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted August 22, 2006 Report Share Posted August 22, 2006 The Operations Log should be able to give you some clues. It should show the name of the Source that it connected to as the last entry before it freezes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted August 23, 2006 Report Share Posted August 23, 2006 Hi: My thoughts. 1: buy Disk Warrior and run it. From what you've said the 'smart failure' isn't the hardware smart thing to me. 2: How is the temp where this thing is at? We see a lot of failures of RAID enclosures, like the LaCie Big Disks due to a lack of cooling.. Not sure if yours is like this, but I'd make sure they aren't over heating. Good luck. -s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terskac Posted August 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2006 Disk Warrior isn't Intel Ready yet. It won't run on the Intel Macs at all. The temperature in my office is controlled. Its heated and air conditioned and kept about 74 F. I managed to get another complete backup to a file destination on the Firevue yesterday. It seems my problem definitely was using the removable disk destinations for the backup sets. I have no idea why this would be an issue. File destinations on the same drives work just fine. I still have to try the update I got from Granite Digital for Tiger on a removable disk destination but this problem started when I was on Panther on the stolen IMac. Is there any disadvantage to using file destinations as backup sets? I notice there is a difference in how the catalogs are kept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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