nimbu

Sorry long wall of text below, but would appreciate any insight to my buried (bolded) questions below. Background: I am planning to migrate from a Synology off the shelf NAS to an Unraid box. As part of all this I fired up a test box so that I could explore/familiarize/ learn more about unraid. Rough spec of the test machine: HP Gen 8 Microserver 8GB Ram 1 x 512GB 840 Pro Cache drive 3 x WD 12TB array single parity (calling them Drive 1, 2 and 3 for below). So a little while back, I awoke to seeing that my unraid array was "degraded" and that Drive 2 had fallen out of the array, no obviously smart issues. After a little google fu and no understanding of how unraid works, instead of assigning the Drive 2 back to slot 2, I instead assigned it to slot 4. This increased the size of my array and the original content of Drive 2 was still being emulated. I did post on the forums after the fact and found the error of my ways. A few days later, I again awoke to errors in Unraid, this time I was seeing a large amount of "Seek error rate" errors being reported with this just going up and up. The server was running but often slowing down and at one point locked up, so I stupidly resorted to a power cycle, which you guessed it corrupted the filesystem on Drive 3. I couldnt retrieve the super block so wasnt able to mount this disk. Again just to stress this was not production and all of the data is on my current NAS and is backed up offsite. I had a busy time with work coming up so I powered down. A few days ago I began to start my build off, I ordered another 12TB from Amazon on prime day, which is currently being precleared (I set up a trial unraid on my spare nuc specifically for the purpose of the preclearing. Just for reference, the build is "new" everything, mobo, cpu mem case etc, the HP Gen 8 is being retired. I powered the HP box up and strangely no errors on Disk 1, I even got a notification to tell me that Drive 1 had returned to normal operation (array itself screwed). I had written off Drive 1 at this point however I thought I would have a fiddle. I powered down the box, removed the other 2 x 12 TB, restarted unraid and opted for a new configuration. I then started off a preclear with pre read and post write disabled completely expecting the drive to fail..... 20 hours later, the drive reports all is well! # Step 1 of 3 - Zeroing the disk: [20:13:19 @ 164 MB/s] SUCCESS # # Step 2 of 3 - Writing unRAID's Preclear signature: SUCCESS # # Step 3 of 3 - Verifying unRAID's Preclear signature: SUCCESS # Obviously this wasn't a complete preclear, but before I do that does anyone have any other recommendations of what I could do to really stress the drive out? As it stands I am a little untrusting of the drive. (Though I also have a suspicion its the server given that Drive 2 fell out of the array and for some reason it wont detect my 2TB Green drives..). If it were you and it passed another full preclear (maybe 2-3 passes) as well as anything additional that is suggested above, would you trust this drive? If so what role would you assign it? I was thinking parity 2 or just as a unassigned device in a non important role. RMA isnt an option as the drive was shucked and I didnt keep the enclosure. Regards,

Hehe yes that would have been fun! I was following some kind of documentation that was talking about re adding a disk that had dropped that you know was still good. Obviously I didn't follow it as closely as I should have. I was on work calls at the same time! This is my learning box based off of a HP Gen 8 I had lying around. I wanted to learn more about UNRAID before building a proper replacement for my DSM 1815+, which is sill my primary NAS.

OK so in theory I should have added it back as disk 2?

Hi Guys, So I had a drive fall out of the pool array and the parity kicked it. I searched through the logs and couldnt find a definitive reason why and I noticed the /sd of the drive had changed for some reason. I stopped the array removed the disk from the array (disk 2). All good in emulated mode so far and no data loss Then I stopped the array again and added the disk back as drive 3. I was prompted the drive needed clearing, so i said yes. Then I was prompted the disk needed formatting, again I said OK. I was under the impression this would rebuild the array but instead its added another drive to the array and the missing disk still appears to be emulated still. Any ideas on what to do next?

Yes I do have a 512gb SSD drive setup as a cache and docker configured to live there. The first 12tb is already at > 85% full hence I thought to re balance once the 2nd data drive was added, though if this isn't required I can skip it.

Hey Guys, So I am nearly there in my migration to Unraid! I put in a single 12TB HD and set this the only unit in my array. Have copied all of my data over and got all my docker stuff working again. I currently have another 12TB pre cleared and ready to go, the plan is to purchase another two to have a 2 x data, 2 x parity setup. Is there a specific order thats recommended? Here is what I was thinking: 1) Add the precleared 12TB as parity one and let the parity build completely 2) Add a second precleared 12TB as parity 2 and let the parity build completely 3) Finally add a third 12TB as Data 2 4) run the balancer tool to split up the data set across the two data drives 5) Run a parity integrity check Sound logicial? Something I have missed? Thanks!

Hey Guys, Quick possibly weird question. I have been testing out Unraid on the trial version and I think I have hit a problem with the hardware im testing with. As this is all just an experiment for now, I wanted to move back to some good known hardware and just start again. Can I just use the USB creator again and use that on the other hardware and start afresh?