Backplane, SAS cables, or Hard Drives...which are most likely bad?

Okay, I am having serious issues with my Norco 4224 Snapraid server. I am getting Windows errors (21, 1167, and more) in SnapRAID that is causing scrub to fail but when I moved hard drives/switched cables some of the errors went away or were reduced but still having issues/uncertainty on what is all wrong. It is possible some of the drives might be going but its hard to tell with these other issues clouding things up. I am trying to verify my data on my SnapRAID server before migrating to bigger/larger drives/parity.

I have been extremely ill for the last several years and my server has been off for approximately 520+ days. This is why I am scrubbing the data before redoing my array to make sure data integrity is all good. I have 5 parity and 9 data drives and all drives are online but 1 or 2 or so are dropping here and there but not sure if it's the drive or the backplane/cabling. Moving them around to different slots has helped to some degree.

I have very limited money since I have been ill for several years so I must be smart about my troubleshooting and what to buy/replace.

What do you think is more likely to be bad/wrong in my situation above? Bad cables? Bad backplane? Or the hard drives? The cables and Norco 4224 date back to ~2015-2016 so it's a bit old and has some dust ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. (It's in my basement) I know cables are part of the issue and I think maybe some slots on the backplane are bad. I do have a spare Norco 4220 and some spare cables so I am pulling that out of the box and prepping it for a possible transplant.

Does anyone have any ideas or advice given the data/scenario above?

Thanks!!! I appreciate all the help I can get!

I don't have must experience/history with these things so I don't know what is the likely failure rate for cables and backplanes. I am using a variety of cables but most are monoprice 30AWG SAS cables. The case is obviously the Norco 4224 24 bay SAS/SATA server.

Any recommendations on cables or a good replacement server case just in case my Norco 4224 is SOL? Is there a new Norco 24 bay SATA/SAS 12GBps case?

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B008VLHOR2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My suggestion would be to do non destructive read tests on each drive (with just a straight SATA cable in another machine, 1 at a time and see if they pass. If the drives pass, then try them with one of the SAS cables and controller (in another machine) to take the backplane out of the equation. Another way is to make a DD copy of each drive to a donor drive and see if the copy completes successfully. Unfortunately, the Norco backplanes have a less than stellar reputation. The best deal right now (though there have been fewer lately) are a used Supermicro box (24 or 36 bay) with SAS2 backplanes/expanders. If you are going to go SSD then SAS12 makes sense, otherwise not.

mwroobel said:

My suggestion would be to do non destructive read tests on each drive (with just a straight SATA cable in another machine, 1 at a time and see if they pass. If the drives pass, then try them with one of the SAS cables and controller (in another machine) to take the backplane out of the equation. Another way is to make a DD copy of each drive to a donor drive and see if the copy completes successfully. Unfortunately, the Norco backplanes have a less than stellar reputation. The best deal right now (though there have been fewer lately) are a used Supermicro box (24 or 36 bay) with SAS2 backplanes/expanders. If you are going to go SSD then SAS12 makes sense, otherwise not.

Click to expand...

are they SAS/SATA combos backplanes because most my drives ATM are SATA but I like having the option to upgrade to SAS drives later down the road.

mwroobel said:

My suggestion would be to do non destructive read tests on each drive (with just a straight SATA cable in another machine, 1 at a time and see if they pass. If the drives pass, then try them with one of the SAS cables and controller (in another machine) to take the backplane out of the equation. Another way is to make a DD copy of each drive to a donor drive and see if the copy completes successfully. Unfortunately, the Norco backplanes have a less than stellar reputation. The best deal right now (though there have been fewer lately) are a used Supermicro box (24 or 36 bay) with SAS2 backplanes/expanders. If you are going to go SSD then SAS12 makes sense, otherwise not.

Click to expand...

BTW I do an HD Sentinel read test non-destructive and they all passed. In the same case so that didn't tell me anything. I am buying some new cables and I will try them with new cables in the other case. See post below.

https://hardforum.com/threads/recommend-a-good-sas-cable-please.2014417/

What supermicro box do you recommend? Have a link/model in mind? I don't know much information on this market so I would love to learn more!

An Aberrant Person said:

BTW I do an HD Sentinel read test non-destructive and they all passed. In the same case so that didn't tell me anything. I am buying some new cables and I will try them with new cables in the other case. See post below.

https://hardforum.com/threads/recommend-a-good-sas-cable-please.2014417/

What supermicro box do you recommend? Have a link/model in mind? I don't know much information on this market so I would love to learn more!

Click to expand...

Here is a 24 bay Supermicro SAS3 box with dual redundant power supplies and it even comes with a motherboard. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133865350378?hash=item1f2aff24ea:g:p5AAAOSw9eRhL8jm