File server: HDD click on startup, slow boot, not consistent

Raidmax 530w, not sure model but it's modular and wasn't very old when I retired the machine it was in prior.

I think the FREENAS part of the hrs issue could be a WD firmware issue of the era...the drives are variety 5-12years old, smaller being in the 10yr region and that's what's having the issues in the server, not all WD drives having issue, but most, but then this morning was a nonWD drive, then a WD drive.

Far as PSU goes, if that's the issue, then the fewer drives should help, but doesn't explain why I only get HDD clicking after a reboot, not after a drive "removed" before a reboot. If it's the PSU I think it's an overload of capacity issue, but the drives aren't running all the time and though most failures were after a lengthy transfer, some were within minutes of boot, before a transfer could even begin.

Have had no performance issues w/ the other hardware. Phenom iix6 cpu and 10gb 1066ram have been running great, temps have stayed around 32C, fans haven't kicked into high gear, no heat buildup in the case when I open it even after running a couple days. There's no vid card in it to suck up power and half the drives are only 2.5" so it's not even a full 9hdd draw.

Every time I think I found the answer and fixed it, machine runs great to make me think it's all good, then 1-3 days later it starts all over again, with each cycle speeding up the fail rate.

Removing the first 2 offending drives did this first time, having gotten to fails within 30minutes. Then machine great for 3 days, with almost nonstop transfers to rebuild the data lost. Then cycle began again, speeding up along the way for a couple days til I decide it's the ada1 assignment, put the dummy drive in to block that slot from use by drives I want, and start back up. Again ran great, for about 36 hrs, making me think I'd fixed it, when the cycle began all over again. Now it finally loaded after about 45 minutes failing to load something over and over, with half my drives disconnected. There are still older WE drives in it, there is again the ada1 slot in use. I won't know until it fails again if it's going to or not. If it doesn't, in about a week I guess I'll know I'd overloaded the PSU, but until it's been at least 4 or 5 days I'll just be expecting it to go back down.

The false starts after repairs each time is what gets me. If it wasn't fixed, why start the cycle over and fake being fixed, with different types of fixes altogether? I know there's more early on I tried too and thought was fixed but can't remember now as this process has gone on for a month now.

Here's an update: more confusion.

Found and disconnected a clicking drive (not sure how, is disconnected all of them at some point during the clixking) HOWEVER...

I then tried to load In FreeNAS, it kept cycling the same operation and saying failed on hrs this or that. Never completed boot.

So, I tried openmediavault, which I had previously installed on another sub. This loaded fine, but returned errors Every time I'd try to access (and thus create any storage) anything pertaining to the drives, other than simplyviewing the HDDs.

So.... I said screw it, (or rather don't do any more screwing or unscrewing if it's to do with the kernel) and went back to Windows. I tried installing home server, got to the 51min remaining mark, went afk, come back to bsod. Think I tried a second time to same result, maybe not. Then I tried xp64, bsod before even asking for cdkey 3 tries. Ran seatools though not sure if any on the mobo are Seagate or just on the raid card (it didn't read the card, but none on card ever showed issue in FreeNAS like onboard did) and it failed a drive so i unpligged it and plugged in another. Running 4 drives at a time for testing, the 5th sata port used for cddrive. This time other drives that passed failed, all WD, again. Samsing and hitachi all passed.

I thought maybe that's because it's for Seagate drives, though I've read elsewhere that seatools works perfectly on we. So at this point I unplugged all but 1 drive, a non-WD one, and tried xp64 install again. Same bsod during initial preparing files. This is using a second xp64 iso, not even just a newly burned disc of the first one.

PSU is plenty big for 1 1tb hrs with this board and 10igs of ram. The mobi came with 8gb and a 1tb drive along with this very do i and a much smaller p su (380?) So unless p su is bad, that's not it. If it is the p su, why is it always we?

Am currently running memtest, will run files i through a loved. Pieces so far have worked fine, except one part of this loved froze. Can't remember which, or what lives is even in here..its 47mb and has a mini do install as well as memtest and some other stuff. No issues so far on memtest 1hr in.

Planning to do, burn, and run several other livecds tonight, but I don't really know where to look right now. Going to run a couple other hrs test/repair utilities to see if same result. If it is, then I lose about 70% of my available HDDs for this server, and still without a cause. If that many are failing, it certainly points to a bad psu with surges frying the hrs boards, but why only the add? Oh, the seatools test flagged my 1tb wd black drive bad too, which is several years newer than all my 320gb blues and the yellow, and thw iriginal hdd for this mobo. So now its not just the old drives but the moddle aged too.

I'm debating ordering a psu tester. I used to have one when I had my pc shop but it disappeared years ago. My problem with that is that if it isn't the issue, that's the end of my cash to deal with this problem. I do live with an electrician I could have manually test all the rails, but I'm hoping someone here has other ideas.

Memory seems fine, no errors yet. HDDs return errors in weird instances and never specific, always WD drives too. Too many drives to be a drive issue itself, these drives were well within their usual lifespan when this mobo was manufacturers.

I do have another mobo I could swap out, using same cup as it's cpu/fan are bigger energy hogs and runs loud. Does anyone think this would help? It's a biggish undertaking, prefer repping mobos last, but at least it's easy in this case, the tray comes out the back.

I've unplugged and replugged everything, I'm using the onboard sata for cdrom, so it's not that (and I've swapped that around to be sure) memtest says clean. I figure its either psu or mobo, but not sure which to try first.

Every pay calculator I use recommends 285 to 310w psu which isn't surprising at all. No vid card, no monitor keyboard or mouse ordinarily (but I left them in calculator) 5 2.5" drives and 5 3.5" 7200rpm drives . One of the 2.5s is powered by sub, but I counted it as both 2 used and a 2.5 hdd in calcs, 1 wimpy pci raid card, not pcie just pci. Running 24x7, no gaming etc, no video needs whatsoever other than this testing. Not a high-end gaming board but ok- from an $800 dell xps from about 2012. 2 or 3 fans plus cpu fan. Case fans all controlled on case.( not sure if there really is a 3rd fan in front of case or not but I assume it is there by looks etc, it's inaccessible) no liquid cooling, 4 sticks of ddr3.

Anyway, haven't tried testing pay yet, but have been running live CD testing and all drives testing fine except one...and it wasn't a problem previously and only showing bad in partition magic and very first sector on physical test elsewhere, so can bypass that when I finish zeroing the drive. Unfortunately it's one of my 2 big drives so gotta try to rescue if it's just a bad sector at beginning.

Still checking everything I can eliminate before messing with psu bc that's not likely something I can replace in near future, even with the low red. The spare I have (original to this mobo/cpu) doesn't have nearly enough rails for the 9 drives in the case with or without adapters, and I'd hate to use messy unsheathed and unmodular ones in this project with all the data cables to route.

Haven't had anything pointing to psu during all this testing so idk. No revving of its fan, no heat buildup, no performance drop from multiple device usage...except that I'm running xp32 bit off the live CD to facilitate the tests and it's "installed" in the same 3.5gig of ram it's limiting itself to using.

Hoping wiping all the drives will somehow fix things, I know it's possible, but if it doesn't, I may end up swapping mobos before seriously looking at the PSU, BECAUSE I can't fix that and I'd rather exhaust the fixable options first. Maybe by then if it's not fixed, I'll be able to buy new psu instead of new/bigger hdds.