itimpi

Is there a reason that the VM cannot access the files as network shares via SMB?

Yes. Note that since all top level folders on any pool or array drive automatically get treated as shares of the same name you may just want to call it ‘download’. Where a share resides is controlled in the share settings. It is not automatically used for ‘caching’ purposes - that needs to be configured where needed at the share level. However by default it IS used for supporting docker containers and VMs.

@YaSo The fact you have a pool called ‘cache’ and the Unraid ‘caching’ facility are two independent things. The Unraid ‘caching’ capability is configured at the individual share level and can be configured to use any pool regardless of what the pool is called. Conversely the fact you have a pool called ‘cache’ does not mean it needs to be used for that (although it can be). It is commonly used to support docker containers or VMs.

As mentioned in the online User Manual you need to check filesystem when you get a drive showing as unmountable.

Nearly write. There is a read during the boot process to read the licence file. I guess it is possible there are other occasional reads to check it is still there. A key point is that the flash drive needs to be permanently available and it is still possible for it to fail even with no R/W activity (although it should be far les likely).

You have to time it yourself and then add on 30 seconds or so. If that timeout is not long enough then you get unclean shutdowns as the timeout shuts down the server before the array is cleanly unmounted. There are other timeouts you can set controlling how long VMs and docker containers should be given before the system attempts forcible close of them.

The first thing you need to do is try stopping the array and timing how long it takes. You then need to set the timeout under Settings->Disk Settings to be at least this value.

What @trurl said is true, but in your case there is an extra option as with an array consisting of exactly one data drive and one parity it is a special case where the parity drive is a mirror of the data drive. You could instead do Tools->New Config, and assign the new 4TB drive to parity and the old 3TB parity drive as disk1. When you start the array it will simply build new parity and the 3TB drive will be intact with all your data. If you intend to use the other 4TB drive as an additional data drive (rather than replacing a 3TB drive) then you could add it at the same time after doing New Config and the parity that is built will cover both data drives.

It is a new pool - not part of the cache pool. Whether a share is cached is set at the individual share level, and it can use any pool (i.e. it does not need to be called cache). There is often confusion between a pool called ‘cache’ and the caching facility which can use any pool. It just historical that the default name for the first pool is ‘cache’ as originally that was all it could be used for.

You are likely to get better informed feedback if you attach your system’s diagnostics (with everything in the one zip file) to your next post in this thread. It is always a good idea when asking questions to supply your diagnostics so we can see details of your system, how you have things configured, and the current syslog.

Just issued an update that resolves a number of small issues, particularly around the Parity Problems Assistant. Should be no obvious change in capabilities. There is one annoying outstanding issue in that many of the strings in the plugins pages still display in English when a different display language is selected. It is not all clear why and I am wondering if the plugin is encountering some limitation within the Unraid multi-language support.

Yes. Both BTRFS and ZFS support various flavours of RAID for redundancy when used in pools.

You do not want SSDs in an Unraid type array as they can then not be trimmed. Why not simply put them into one or more pools as SSDs in pools CAN be trimmed.?

The syslog in the diagnostics shows that you are getting continual resets on disk4. This suggest a connection issue of some sort (SATA or power).

If this fails I would expect that it is almost certain the extended test will fail as well.

You should make sure you set a value for the Minimum Free Space on the cache pool to avoid it getting too full.

Have you done a memtest recently? RAM issues can cause that type of error.

You are likely to get better informed feedback if you attach your system’s diagnostics (with everything in the one zip file) taken after experiencing the problem to your next post in this thread to see if we can spot something. It is always a good idea when asking questions to supply your diagnostics so we can see details of your system, how you have things configured, and the current syslog.

New Config does not touch the existing content of any data drives so any existing data on them remains as it was before doing the New Config.

It should not, but deleting it will not cause a problem. Unfortunately if it is nothing obvious you are going to have to continue to contact support and work with them to get it resolved.

No. The parity drive does not have a file system to be recovered.

My suspicion would be a permissions error. How were they populated? If it is a permissions error then running Tools->New Permissions on the ‘data’ share should correct it.

That would be expected with Manual as only disks where you manually create the top level folder corresponding to share name are included in the share. With the example you gave then once Not convinced that is the actual path for a particular movie? Do you really have folders called ‘movies_a-z’ or is that a description? If you do not sure why it is repeated twice. Also do you really have a share called ‘user’? Once the path you give has been created (which has 3 levels) then anything that shares the third level is constrained to the disk on the third level is created.

Perhaps it would be a good idea if you gave an example of an actual path to a movie as it is not clear to me what your path’s actually look like. An important point to realise is that in the event of any contention then Split Level wins over allocation method and can cause files to be written to a drive that might not have enough room. This can be an issue in particular if the application doing the copying creates the folders before copying the actual files.

You are likely to get more informed feedback if you attach your system's diagnostics zip file to your next post in this thread (or maybe create a new thread as your problem may be different). It is always a good idea to do this to allow us to see the current state of your system and so we can see logs and configuration information.