Re: Seagate ST6000DM003-2CY186 "flapping". Disconnecting and reconnecting randomly.

Edit fail; correction: If you _need_ working but not new, you may wish 
to do something similar.


On 2026-08-11 11:05, Alexander Burke wrote:
> I bought several used 6TB SAS drives on eBay which were used but in 
> great shape, and I spent MUCH less than new. If you don't need working 
> but not new, you may wish to do something similar.
> 
> You are using something which you know to not be fit for purpose. You 
> should therefore fully expect it to not work. Asking us for help despite 
> that is not a kind use of our time.
> 
> 
> On 2026-08-11 00:10, Jonathan wrote:
>> On 2026-08-10 18:02, Alexander Burke wrote:
>>> Found the problem:
>>>
>>>> Model Family:     Seagate BarraCuda 3.5 (SMR)
>>>
>>> SMR drives are incompatible with ZFS (and I personally recommend 
>>> against using them for any purpose whatsoever).
>>
>>
>> As noted in my footnote (copied just below this paragraph) I'm well 
>> aware that SMR drives and ZFS can be problematic. I'm trying to make 
>> do and not spend several hundred dollars right now. If performance was 
>> a concern I'd just spend the money but right now all I need is for the 
>> drive to stay attached so I keep redundancy.
>>
>> """
>> [1] Yes I know it's SMR and that's a bad idea for ZFS or any RAID but 
>> it's a
>> stopgap to hopefully keep the array redundant until prices get less 
>> crazy.
>> """
>>
>>
>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>
>>> 2026-08-10T21:49:38Z Jonathan <[email protected]>:
>>>
>>>> I have a ST6000DM003-2CY186 as part of a ZFS array [1] and it keeps 
>>>> dropping
>>>> out of the array with the messages below showing up in dmesg. How can I
>>>> figure out more specifically why it's dropping and get it to stay?
>>>>
>>>> I've had the drive in 2 different bays in my hotswap cage, used 2 
>>>> different
>>>> cables connected to 2 different motherboard ports and now having it 
>>>> running
>>>> next to the server directly attached to take the hotswap bay out of the
>>>> picture. I set a loader hint to downgrade to SATA 2 but that hasn't 
>>>> helped
>>>> either. I'm very much running out of ideas. What really drives me 
>>>> crazy is
>>>> that (other than the total time taken because of the internal SMR
>>>> housekeeping) it made it through the initial resilver without a 
>>>> problem.
>>>> There doesn't seem to be much of a pattern to the drops. It doesn't
>>>> correlate with any activity or specific span of lack of activity 
>>>> that I've
>>>> been able to identify.
>>>>
>>>> ada1 at ahcich3 bus 0 scbus3 target 0 lun 0
>>>> ada1: <ST6000DM003-2CY186 0001> s/n ZF200T9W detached
>>>> (ada1:ahcich3:0:0:0): Periph destroyed
>>>> ada1 at ahcich3 bus 0 scbus3 target 0 lun 0
>>>> ada1: <ST6000DM003-2CY186 0001> ACS-3 ATA SATA 3.x device
>>>> ada1: Serial Number ZF200T9W
>>>> ada1: 300.000MB/s transfers (SATA 2.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)
>>>> ada1: Command Queueing enabled
>>>> ada1: 5723166MB (11721045168 512 byte sectors)
>>>> ada1: quirks=0x1<4K>
>>>>
>>>> The SMART data is:
>>>>
>>>> ```
>>>> smartctl 7.5 2025-04-30 r5714 [FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE-p12 amd64] 
>>>> (local build)
>>>> Copyright (C) 2002-25, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, 
>>>> www.smartmontools.org
>>>>
>>>> === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
>>>> Model Family:     Seagate BarraCuda 3.5 (SMR)
>>>> Device Model:     ST6000DM003-2CY186
>>>> Serial Number:    ZF200T9W
>>>> LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 0a4eaf8d3
>>>> Firmware Version: 0001
>>>> User Capacity:    6,001,175,126,016 bytes [6.00 TB]
>>>> Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
>>>> Rotation Rate:    5425 rpm
>>>> Device is:        In smartctl database 7.5/5706
>>>> ATA Version is:   ACS-3 T13/2161-D revision 5
>>>> SATA Version is:  SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
>>>> Local Time is:    Mon Aug 10 17:42:31 2026 EDT
>>>> SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
>>>> SMART support is: Enabled
>>>>
>>>> === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
>>>> SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
>>>>
>>>> General SMART Values:
>>>> Offline data collection status:  (0x82) Offline data collection 
>>>> activity
>>>>                                          was completed without error.
>>>>                                          Auto Offline Data 
>>>> Collection: Enabled.
>>>> Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test 
>>>> routine completed
>>>>                                          without error or no self- 
>>>> test has ever
>>>>                                          been run.
>>>> Total time to complete Offline
>>>> data collection:                (    0) seconds.
>>>> Offline data collection
>>>> capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline 
>>>> immediate.
>>>>                                          Auto Offline data 
>>>> collection on/off support.
>>>>                                          Suspend Offline collection 
>>>> upon new
>>>>                                          command.
>>>>                                          Offline surface scan 
>>>> supported.
>>>>                                          Self-test supported.
>>>>                                          Conveyance Self-test 
>>>> supported.
>>>>                                          Selective Self-test supported.
>>>> SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before 
>>>> entering
>>>>                                          power-saving mode.
>>>>                                          Supports SMART auto save 
>>>> timer.
>>>> Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
>>>>                                          General Purpose Logging 
>>>> supported.
>>>> Short self-test routine
>>>> recommended polling time:        (   1) minutes.
>>>> Extended self-test routine
>>>> recommended polling time:        ( 798) minutes.
>>>> Conveyance self-test routine
>>>> recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
>>>> SCT capabilities:              (0x30a5) SCT Status supported.
>>>>                                          SCT Data Table supported.
>>>>
>>>> SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
>>>> Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
>>>> ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED 
>>>> WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
>>>>    1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   073   064   006    Pre-fail 
>>>> Always        -       20195647
>>>>    3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   098   092   000    Pre-fail 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>>    4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       85
>>>>    5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>>    7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   070   060   045    Pre-fail 
>>>> Always        -       10214727
>>>>    9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       726h+57m+29.053s
>>>>   10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>>   12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       63
>>>> 183 Runtime_Bad_Block       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>> 184 End-to-End_Error        0x0032   100   100   099    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>> 187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>> 188 Command_Timeout         0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       0 0 2
>>>> 189 High_Fly_Writes         0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>> 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   060   044   040    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       40 (Min/Max 39/40)
>>>> 191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>> 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       94
>>>> 193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       315
>>>> 194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   040   056   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       40 (0 16 0 0 0)
>>>> 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   073   064   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       20195647
>>>> 197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>> 198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age 
>>>> Offline      -       0
>>>> 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age 
>>>> Always        -       0
>>>> 240 Head_Flying_Hours       0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age 
>>>> Offline      -       237h+57m+03.832s
>>>> 241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age 
>>>> Offline      -       8646277300
>>>> 242 Total_LBAs_Read         0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age 
>>>> Offline      -       888924720
>>>>
>>>> SMART Error Log Version: 1
>>>> No Errors Logged
>>>>
>>>> SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
>>>> No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]
>>>>
>>>> SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
>>>>   SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
>>>>      1        0        0  Not_testing
>>>>      2        0        0  Not_testing
>>>>      3        0        0  Not_testing
>>>>      4        0        0  Not_testing
>>>>      5        0        0  Not_testing
>>>> Selective self-test flags (0x0):
>>>>    After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
>>>> If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute 
>>>> delay.
>>>>
>>>> The above only provides legacy SMART information - try 'smartctl -x' 
>>>> for more
>>>> ```
>>>>
>>>> [1] Yes I know it's SMR and that's a bad idea for ZFS or any RAID 
>>>> but it's a
>>>> stopgap to hopefully keep the array redundant until prices get less 
>>>> crazy.
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> Jonathan
> 
>