stoner

That's what I thought....but just needed to hear someone else say it... Thanks Joe!

I use my unRAID box about 2-3 times a week. In the long run, is it better to sleep/suspend my box or turn it off until I need it. For power savings, turning it off will better of course but will it be better for the harddisks if I sleep/suspend so that they do not have to power cycle so often?

I can confirm that with a set of pre-cleared disks with no parity assigned, the "Format"button will still show up. I added one pre-cleared disk first. Formatted it. Filled it up with data. Then added a second one. Formatted it. Filled it up before adding a third parity drive. The "Format" button shows up both times I added a pre-cleared disk.

Answered previously by Joe here.

Thanks Joe! The drives were connected to a PCI Sata Raid card. I suspect that the raid bios turns off write cache by default to ensure data integrity in the event of power failure or something similar. Seems to be the most likely reason after googling around...

Update [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA Regarding the above, have enabled the write cache using "hdparm -W 1 /dev/sda" and able to get write speeds of 70-80 mb/s when preclearing. One 750Gb drive now preclears in 10 hours (the norm based on Joe's results) compared to 13 previously. However, I need to re-enable the write cache everytime I do a complete shutdown and bootup of the server. Would it be alright for me to add this line into the go script to be run each time at boot? As for the squeaky hdd, have replaced it with a new one which doesn't squeaks. No point taking any chances.

Sounds bad. Guess I have to find out more on this. Read speeds are 70+ mb/s using hdparm -tT so no problems there. It's the write speed that is pathetic. Although once Unraid is up, write speeds will probably be limited more by the network speed. These are actually OEM Seagate drives for HP so you wouldn't find the model number on Seagate's website. Yup. Pretty sure as I put my ear to the hdd when pressing the power on button. Everything else appears to be okay so I am a bit reluctant to exchange for a new one which may or may not be better (if the squeaking sound is not a major problem).

Hi all, First post so do excuse me if I my questions have been asked before... I am currently trying out the free version (before I put my money down) and running it on an old HP P4 1.9 Ghz server. I have 3 new Seagate Barracuda ES 750Gb hdds which I am preclearing. So far the SMART reports look fine although my temps are a bit high as I live awfully near the Equator (ambient temp is 30+...bah). As it's an old server, I am running the 3 hdds off a PCI SATA card. When preclearing a single drive, I am getting about 30-35 mb/s. Same for 2 drives and down to 15 mb/s for all 3 drives. In terms of hours, that's 13 for 1-2 drives and 23 for 3 drives. Based on the what I have read in the threads, I should be taking about 10 hours for a single drive alone. Not sure if the line below that says "Write cache: disabled" is normal.. [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA I have attached the syslog when preclearing all 3 drives below. /dev/hda is a CF card in an IDE adaptor so you can ignore the errors. The other thing I am concerned about is that one of the hdds (/dev/sdc) makes a squeaking sound when starting up. No more weird sounds after that. I am told that this is normal for Seagate hdds and nothing to worry about. Still a bit worried as the other 2 do not make the same sound starting up. So should I be concerned? Thanks for everyone's attention. If this is the wrong thread, do let me know and I will start a new one instead.