After upgrading to snv_121, I have not found any problem with it…. well, until 2 days ago. I have 2 directory on a ZFS RAIDZ volume that I could not access.
This is a simple 5 bay, port multiplier enabled (Silicon Image, Sil3726 I believe) enclosure, connected to the NAS box via a USB2 to eSATA converter which I have mentioned before. Each bay is a 1TB drive of various makes.
I performed a scrub and to my surprise, there were a few errors, but thanks to the RAIDZ, nothing is lost. The scrub finished without any issue, but I still could not access the 2 directories over CIFS. I can access other directories just fine. When I ssh into the box, the content of the directory is intact… this would point to the CIFS/SMB service being the source of the issue.
I tried to copy the content to another directory within the same volume using simple cp or rsync. Strangely, the new directory also could not be access over CIFS/SMB. I am suspecting that the UTF-8 filenames of files might have something to do with it. Since I first observed this problem in snv_121, I thought, why not boot to snv_118 with the wonderful snapshot that each upgrade took before the installation.
So I chose to boot to the previous snapshot. Then tried to access the drive…. DRIVES WERE NOT ACCESSABLE! Perform a zpool status, showed that the volume I had issue with was OFFLINE, all the HD in the enclosure was indicated as OFFLINE. “My God, did I lose everything?!” I thought to myself.
I rebooted the enclosure and wait for power-up. Did the zpool status again. Okay, everyting was reported to be fine. Go to that storage pool…. IT WAS EMPTY!!! “OMG, I really did lose everything!!!”
I rebooted the NAS box to go back to snv_121, thinking that the new ZFS version might caused snv_118 not to recognize it…. again, the storage pool has good status, but have no data. Suddenly, it dawned on me that I read somewhere to export the volume and reimport it. So I tried that…. IT WORKED! The storage pool came back to live with everything intact.
So a lesson learnt…. if you run into a problem like this, tried to do an zpool export <poolname> and zpool import <poolname>. I am not sure why ZFS didnt’ automatically recognize the data. I didn’t dare to do a scrub since I have no idea how distructive it could have been… I hope this helps someone out there who might have similar issue.
TonidoPlug First Impression…
Yes, I know I am crazy but I just bought a TonidoPlug. PogoPlug, TonidoPlug and SheevaPlug are all based on a very similar reference design using ARM processor.
From my current experience with both, the two are about equal.
Application Support Winner: TonidoPlug
I must say, I am really impressed with the various Apps already available on the TonidoPlug. I am especially happy with the TonidoTorrent. Now, I can have a torrent client that runs 24×7 with very low power usage. If I can somehow get an eMule client on it, this is a perfect machine.
Hardware Design: Draw
The two devices are virtually identifcal. I think the Tonido website was a bit misleading in that it showed that the device had a slot for putting in an SD card or something. I tried hard, but I wasn’t able to make anything give to show that slot. TonidoPlug does have 256MB more RAM, which probably gave it a slight advantage in the number of application that it can run simultaneously.
Integration and usage: PogoPlug
While Tonido has superior application support, I cannot say enough good things about the ability to show PogoPlug as a network drive on your computer. It is the single most important feature it has.
In relative terms, PogoPlug’s setup is much easier, it doesn’t require any tweaks to the Router etc, simply because there just isn’t much to configure. On the other hand, you will need to establish a profile on Tonido’s website and open the admin port to allow remote administration. While it is a piece of cake for the hackers among us, it may not be a trivia task for the public.
So take your pick. I think if you want to use it as a simple server, TonidoPlug wins hands down. For simple file sharing, I think PogoPlug is the way to go.
Plug Computing
Apparently, PogoPlug is just one implementation of Plug Computing. There are several others, including SheevaPlug and TonidoPlug. Sheeva is the base implementation upon which different companies package nicer application onto this little server.
Both Tonido and Sheeva are slightly more powerful (contain more RAM) and have SD card expansion. However, PogoPlug has the essential piece of software that makes it a better product for my use: Network Drive Client. A pogoplug can appear as a network drive on your local machine. CloudeEngine has clients in Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.
What I am planning of using the Pogoplug is as follows:
1) Use the Drobo that I have as a remot backup unit.
2) Connect the Drobo to Pogoplug
3) On remote machine, install network drive client and connect to the PogoPlug.
4) Use directory sync program to sync daily changes: SyncToy or FreeFileSync (as suggested by one of the visitors to this site)
Cheap and easy disater recovery site can be setup like this. I will let you know how it goes.
I have also ordered a TonidoPlug to evaluate. These little machines are amazing in that they are really small computers. TonidoPlug runs Ubuntu 9.04 which means that developing or packaging software for it should be quite doable. These plug computers use ARM processors which are very power efficient. I may soon use the TonidoPlug to do my torrent downloads instead of using a laptop.
Are you PogoPlugged?…
Just received the PogoPlug that I ordered. Just Google for it and you will find the website.
Pogoplug is the size of a small power brick, but it is literally a small embedded Linux plateform. There was literally no configuration required. You plug the device into your router and power it up. Hook up a spare USB2 HD and magically, you have Internet enabled storage system.
The device required no configuration at all. It connects to PogoPlug’s website and takes care of NAT traversal automatically. You can access the content via PogoPlug’s website or install a software package to use it as a local HD.
I am testing it out right now but am planning to use this as a way to sync across Internet to provide some off-site backup. I volunteer for a non-profit organization that generates a ton of photos and video. I am planning to us this device to provide off-site backup. It would be very simple to do the initial data backup directly using locally attached HD, then connect this to the PogoPlug. Future syncing could use SyncToy on a local machine in the HQ to the PogoPlugged device. Fairly low cost off-site backup I think…
snv_118snv_121 upgrade… SUCCESS!
I am very impressed with the upgrade process of OpenSolaris. No other operating system that I know of offer the kind of upgrade assurance (well, I am pretty paranoid actually). Each version upgrade, the Update Manager in OpenSolaris (if you use ZFS as root file system), will automatically create a snapshot of the existing installation and then install the new version. If you run into problem with the new version, as long as the boot manager still comes up, you can simply boot to the previous working snatpshot and everything would be as was.
While I understand the above, the upgrade still makes me a bit uneasy…. after biting my finger a few times, I decided to go ahead with the upgrade. I fired up the Update Manager and chose to upgrade all packages… I wasn’t watching the progress, but continue to write to the NAS while the upgrade was in progress. I think this is important because it means that uptime wax maximized even during an upgrade.
After reboot, the new version came up flawlessly. I haven’t yet seen any performance improvement per se with my daily use (only used it for 2 days)… but will report back if I find anything interesting.
All in all, everything was where it was supposed to be… OpenSolaris is really quite a matured OS.
