[Lost connection to Unraid]

I just lost connection to my UnRaid server.  I cannot get to it via telnet, nor a web interface.  I have tried both telnet via IP and tower (and the same from the web)

 

I tried to export a syslog 3 or 4 times now and then power down and bring the thumbdrive over to my laptop, but every time the syslog is not there.  I have tried

 

CP /var/log/syslog /boot

 

and I have tried

 

cp /var/log/syslog /boot/syslog-2008-11-11.txt

chmod a-x /boot/syslog-2008-11-11.txt

 

I do not have files hidden.

 

I thought that maybe the built-in Network adapter has failed, so I tried ifconfig but I don't get any info when doing this.

 

I tried ls -l /dev/disk/by-label

  which said "no such directory"

 

I typed

 

cat /proc/partitions

  I got a list of all the drives, but I don't think the USB drive was in the list, so I (booted down) disconnected all the drives (not the usb drive) and did it again (booted up and did it again) and got nothing (no drives)

 

When I have the usb drive connected to the laptop, the files are on the drive and I can write to it, and the volume label is Unraid.  It shows up as drive letter i which is no different than the drive letter it has always appeared as.

 

I have tried:

ls -l /boot

I get nothing

 

I have tried

mount

 

and get:

proc on /proc type proc (rw)

sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)

usbfs on /proc/pub/usb type usbfs (rw)

 

I need some help.  I can't seem to figure this out.

 

I am going to post this and then keep trying some stuff.

 

I am going to look at the mother board bios.

 

Thanks for any help

[One drive stated as "MISSING" and one drive stated as "NOT INSTALLED"]

Rob,

Thanks for the reply.  I will do some investigative work on Disk 5 to see what happened but it will have to be after I get back from a trip that I am going on.  I also will check the bios to see what my options are for SATA modes.

[One drive stated as "MISSING" and one drive stated as "NOT INSTALLED"]

Rob,

I meant to thank you for your translation of the syslog.... thanks

 

As you mentions a Sanitize option would really be nice.  Removing of my IP info was overkill and as you mentioned I am not sure how one could use this info (as you can see I did not go to such drastic measures on the second syslog posted, seeing it is not adding any level of security).  I am not sure anyone could do anything with the serial numbers either.

 

My board is a ASUS P5LV2-VM.  Are you suggesting a change to the bios to help performance?  I have a majority of the drives (5 of them) in a 5 in 3 bay SATA backplane ( DS-3151SSBK ). The tow drives that I was jockeying around were both in the backplane.  All but one of the drives in the backplane are connected straight to the motherboards SATA connections the other is connected to a IDE card with some type of SATA support, which is probably the cache disk or parity (I am open for configuration changes to boost performance, which I feel is a little on the slow side.  I have added all the performance suggestions a week or so ago which are listed on the wiki site).

 

Let me know if you need any more info.  I will gladly post a list of system components, but will need to shut down the array to take a look inside, or hunt down the receipts.

 

One last thing....

As Joe has said,"(success stories are less likely to have somebody make a post to say it worked. People with problems often post to say something did not work as expected.)."

 

IT WORKED!!!!

 

I wanted to be sure to comment on what a great product this is.  I am a very happy customer and Love UnRAID.  And the above is just one more success story for UnRAID to add to its resume.

 

As Crankbearing has said, "great product - great service - great support = Very Happy Customer"

[One drive stated as "MISSING" and one drive stated as "NOT INSTALLED"]

Swap-Disable procedure which completed this am:

1. Captured Syslog.txt and posted to forum as per Joe's request

      -See http://lime-technology.com/?page_id=33 for getting to the proper screen to capture log

      -See http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting#Capturing_your_syslog (section is called "Capturing your syslog") Joe gives instruction on this above

      -To view the log I usually Change the Export settings for the Flash Drive to Export Read/Write on the Shares tab of the GUI http://tower/shares.htm Then I go to my network places and navigate to \\Tower\flash

            If you can not see the flash share then you may need to add UPnP User Interface in windows go to your control panel and click add remove programs / Add Remove Windows components (on left bar) / Click on

            Network  Services and in the bottom right click on Details / then check the box UPnP User Interface.

            (there are other methods for viewing the syslog.txt file)

      -removed any private info in syslog prior to post

2. Printed "disk devices" assignments as shown on the "Devices" tab of the GUI located at http://tower/devices.htm (I just pulled the page up and printed the screen which is needed info for drive swaps and moving drives around in the on the mother board)

**** (possible additional step) Should I have "backup 'config/super.dat' and 'config/disk.cfg' files" to my workstation??? http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Replacing_a_Data_Drive

3. Powered Down

4. maybe should of powered back up and capture another syslog as per Rob's request but did not get request until after step 5.  (sorry Rob... I know to do this next time.)

5. Located the physical location of the parity drive (good drive and disk5 (failed drive) being careful to match the serial number on the print out in step 2.

    pulled disk5 (failed drive)

    pulled 750gig parity drive and placed parity drive in slot where 750gig disk5 was

    inserted new 1tb drive in to slot where old parity drive was (1tb was my only warm spare / on-call drive I had)

6. Powered up UnRAID (came up fine.... the Parity Drive and disk5 indicator light on http://tower/main.htm were showing as blue (all others were green)

7. Skipped this step

    I did not have to re-map the parity drive or disk5 on http://tower/devices.htm of the gui (seeing I Jockeyed the new drives into the slots as per step 5 unraid did the matching)

    if you did not do this then you will need to go through assigning the drives as needed on http://tower/devices.htm of the GUI

7. I did not do a screen capture for this step but UnRAID had a message saying it was ready to copy all the data from the old parity to the new parity drive... with some type of message saying "I am sure" with a check box.

    I checked the box and hit "Start" and UnRAID started mirroring/copying the old parity on to the new parity. Once Unraid was done with the copy it did a rebuild on disk5 (no user steps between parity copy and rebuild...)

8. By morning The parity copy was done, disk5 was rebuilt, and parity was valid.

9. to simplify matters (I learned my lesson) I will avoid all the steps above by make sure my warm spares/ on-call drives are bigger than any disk in the arry, but not bigger than my parity disk. (If I do purchase a drive bigger than the parity disk) I will go ahead at that time and swap out the parity.

 

I did have a stressful moment during the copy/rebuild ( Swap-Disable procedure )... We had a storm roll through in the middle of the night, during this process.  I got up and frantically looked for a post on shutting down the array during a swap-disable or even during a parity copy and/or disk rebuild.  I found one post of interest http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=578.0  (thanks Joe and Tom).  It seems it is possible to stop the array and power down, if one were to run into this situation (I am working on having the server on a UPS but I am not sure I would buy a big enough UPS to allow for an all night Swap-disable) a ups and generator would be ideal but not everyone is going to have this, so it is nice to know that you can stop the array and power down during these situations.  I am not 100% that this is an option seeing by the time I found the post and the storm got to the point where I felt I need to interrupt the process, stop and power down... the array was done with the swap-disable and parity was valid, so I just stopped the array powered down and went back to bed.

 

I am looking for comments and corrections on the above.  I will make the necessary adds/edits so that this post will one day possibly help someone else.  I definitely need some help with step 7 seeing I did not take careful notes or take a screen shot of what one will be confronted with during the start of a swap-disable

 

Rob... I attached a syslog but I think it was after the parity was valid.

 

[One drive stated as "MISSING" and one drive stated as "NOT INSTALLED"]

I rebooted UnRAID and disk1 looks fine now.  Now all I have is disk 5 that is showing as having an error.  I will do a swap swap-disable and should be back up and running.

[One drive stated as "MISSING" and one drive stated as "NOT INSTALLED"]

Here is the syslog.  The explanation of the missing drive makes sense.  Let me know if you notice any other issues with my syslog.

Thanks for your help.

[One drive stated as "MISSING" and one drive stated as "NOT INSTALLED"]

Well I just encountered what seems to be my first drive failure and hopefully not two drive failures. 

I was looking at some files in a folder and it seemed that there were multiple files missing.  I have been doing some house cleaning but was sure I did not delete the files that are missing, so I immediately suspected there was an issue with UnRAID.  After bringing up the GUI, I noticed that there was one drive showing as Red.  Not sure what red meant, so I went to wiki and see that red is "the disk is disabled". 

I did not disable the drive, so I am guessing that UnRAID disabled it due to a problem with the drive.  I stopped the array and then went back to the disk status page and now have a drive labeled as missing and a drive showing / labeled as not installed.  I have not done anything beyond that.  If it was a one drive issue I might of felt comfortable enough to move forward with doing a power down and a drive swap, but seeing I am getting an error on two drives, I am a little more hesitant to move forward without getting some input.

 

Just a small run down,  on my system:

UnRAID version: 4.3.2

parity is a 750gig seagate

disk1 is a 500gig seagate which is the one showing as Missing

disk 2, 3, 4, and cache seem to be ok

disk5 is a 750gig seagate showing as not installed

 

I do not have a spare drive under 1tb (I just put another UnRAID system together that has (5) 1tb drives that are still empty so I could use them) so I would have to do a "swap-disable" (see wiki section "replace failed disk" http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Manual#Replace_a_failed_disk

 

I have printed out the Main tab and device tab of the GUI so I will not lose the drive placement during this repair job. (the disk's S/N show up on both pages for disk1 but only show up on the devices page for disk5.

 

Can anyone help me through the process of getting UnRAID back up and running with no data loss.  Thanks for any help anyone can give.

 

[Maximum root Password length and comprehesive list of characters allowed]

The problem with extremely long passwords is that they become LESS secure than short ones.  The issue is not a technical one, but a human one.  Reasonable length passwords can be memorized, long seemingly-random ones cannot.  A 12 character password that you can remember is more likely to secure a system than a 100 character password you write down on a sticky and place under your keyboard.

 

Yeah, I see that you are saving it to a "secure location" but others may not, so it is something to keep in mind.

 

 

Bill

 

Bill thanks for the input.  Both you and Joe make a great point regarding the 12 or 8 character passwords that one can remember verses a 100 character password that could be carelessly placed on a desk or in a drawer.  No password would be secure if it were written down and placed conveniently for retrieval with out lock and key and next to the computer (i guess lock and key is even questionable).  This situation (as you mentioned will not be my issue).  My concern is someone hacking my network and then trying to hack unRAID.  unRAID does not time out after a certain amount of attempts or at least it does not look like it does, so someone could write a script to plug in any combination of characters to hack the system. I guess if there is a setting for getting unraid to timeout for a certain period in conjunction with a short password that is memorized would or could be better than a long password with no time out after a certain amount of attempts.  I guess I am a little more nervous then you guys.  I am not a hacker and struggle to think like a hacker.  I do have private data but it is not earth shattering and surely won't change the world if it leaks out, but if a hacker brakes in it surely will change my world, which is not something I want to happen.  I have the usual network stuff routers, wifi, and wireless equipment (not to mention the great and impenetrable windows xp with java running every now and then) on my network but it seems that there are always new hacks out there to exploit someone, somewhere.  I also here a lot of people using one password for all logins which is also very dangerous which I can't say I have not been guilty of.  I do not have a different password for every thing on the web but I still struggle to remember the ones I have.  I use a program to keep my passwords, which has a master password which I can change and do change (the program uses AES encryption).  I am sure their are comments for my method also, and I am open for them.  I am just an average guy trying to take steps towards protecting my personal files, family pics, scanned bills, movies, songs, and that type stuff.... you know the high level security info that I keep in that hardened bunker that I dare not tell Joe about its location .   I sort of like the "I like Ice Cream in the Summer"... maybe I will use that.  Thanks aging for you guys bringing some perspective to my paranoia.

Your goal is a good one, but all you need is one computer on your lan to be compromised, and they all are.  The "login" password to get to the management web page of unRAID, or to log in via telnet is only one part of the equation.  All of the SAMBA shares must be also protected, otherwise, anybody can simply get to the data through SAMBA and your shared drives.  Every PC on your LAN must be equally hardened, otherwise, if they have access to a shared drive on your server, you have some exposure if they can get to a command prompt on the PC.

 

Good luck....

 

Joe L.

 

I have drive shares off and flash shares off.  I do have user shares on which is I guess what you are referring to as SAMBA shares. (correct me if I am wrong please).  I do not have passwords on seeing I have struggled to get that working with Windows XP.  Seems I cannot map a network drive if I have passwords on the user shares.  I did use some long user share names which I may be wrongly assuming that those are not distributed names (visible to anyone hooked to the network)  I have looked for a simple fix on this but the last time I looked there were no simple fixes to get password protection for user shares working with xp.  I definitely want to get that working soon.  Rob, Thanks for adding this post to the wiki.  I hope it will help others.  I like to cross reference the other links so that others that are looking know where to go to get more info and so I know where to go when I come back to this post down the road.

[Maximum root Password length and comprehesive list of characters allowed]

The problem with extremely long passwords is that they become LESS secure than short ones.  The issue is not a technical one, but a human one.  Reasonable length passwords can be memorized, long seemingly-random ones cannot.  A 12 character password that you can remember is more likely to secure a system than a 100 character password you write down on a sticky and place under your keyboard.

 

Yeah, I see that you are saving it to a "secure location" but others may not, so it is something to keep in mind.

 

 

Bill

 

Bill thanks for the input.  Both you and Joe make a great point regarding the 12 or 8 character passwords that one can remember verses a 100 character password that could be carelessly placed on a desk or in a drawer.  No password would be secure if it were written down and placed conveniently for retrieval with out lock and key and next to the computer (i guess lock and key is even questionable).  This situation (as you mentioned will not be my issue).  My concern is someone hacking my network and then trying to hack unRAID.  unRAID does not time out after a certain amount of attempts or at least it does not look like it does, so someone could write a script to plug in any combination of characters to hack the system. I guess if there is a setting for getting unraid to timeout for a certain period in conjunction with a short password that is memorized would or could be better than a long password with no time out after a certain amount of attempts.  I guess I am a little more nervous then you guys.  I am not a hacker and struggle to think like a hacker.  I do have private data but it is not earth shattering and surely won't change the world if it leaks out, but if a hacker brakes in it surely will change my world, which is not something I want to happen.  I have the usual network stuff routers, wifi, and wireless equipment (not to mention the great and impenetrable windows xp with java running every now and then) on my network but it seems that there are always new hacks out there to exploit someone, somewhere.  I also here a lot of people using one password for all logins which is also very dangerous which I can't say I have not been guilty of.  I do not have a different password for every thing on the web but I still struggle to remember the ones I have.  I use a program to keep my passwords, which has a master password which I can change and do change (the program uses AES encryption).  I am sure their are comments for my method also, and I am open for them.  I am just an average guy trying to take steps towards protecting my personal files, family pics, scanned bills, movies, songs, and that type stuff.... you know the high level security info that I keep in that hardened bunker that I dare not tell Joe about its location .  I sort of like the "I like Ice Cream in the Summer"... maybe I will use that.  Thanks aging for you guys bringing some perspective to my paranoia.

[Maximum root Password length and comprehesive list of characters allowed]

Thanks for the response Joe.  Seeing that upper case is allowed, I went ahead and set to the task of starting with the first 14 characters as the password and added one character until I gained access  (I tried telnet but it kept timing out).  Currently the magic number/length via the web interface is 40, so I was 10 over the limit for Tom's allocated amount in his program.

I will stick to A-Z, a-z, and 0-9 and stay below 40 characters.  I am not sure if I will play around with any of the other characters. 

Whys is passwords longer than 8 characters discouraged.  (could I run into more or bigger issues down the road if I go with a password longer than 8 characters?  The best bit strength I can seem to get with a max 8 character password is around 45, but when going to 40 I can get up to 235 (this rating is something the password generator is providing)

Thanks again for the help

[Maximum root Password length and comprehesive list of characters allowed]

I was reading some post on security for the unRAID and decided that I should add/change to a more difficult password to login into my unRAID.

I read that passwords should not have the following characters: | & ; ( ) < > space tab ; $ # * @

(I pulled this info from http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=974.0 and

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ#What_characters_are_not_legal_in_an_unRAID_password.3F

Based on this I would think one could use the following though: - _ = + ^ ^ / ? % ! ~ , [ ] { }     (maybe someone could clear this up) (I am sure I missed a few)

Not being 100% sure if those characters could be used or not I decided to stick to A-Z, a-z, and 0-9 (I took a chance on the capital letters, seeing I could not find a post that specifically said don't use upper case in the password)

I used a password generator to create a password which was 50 characters long with the constraints of using A-Z, a-z, and 0-9 (if there are other characters that can be used I would of included those with my constraints and will include them when I know which ones can be used.

Once I had a generated password and I saved it to a secure location and then entered it into unRAID twice and hit save.  Now I am no longer able to get into my own unRAID. (not exactly what my goal was  )

I would think the issue is that unRAID has a limitation on the length allowed for the password.  I could try entering the pass with removing one character at a time hoping to get in, but if upper case is not allowed, then I would be at it for a while.  Here is the password I used:

0M9bleSb4BRrWtAWIfWa7ASxX7SXYxKGK7cbDyUV6kWxDbgtO0  (I changed around a few digits for my protection and will completely change the password when I get back in)

Thanks for any help on this.

 

 

 

[Twonky Media Server on Unraid]

Joe thanks for the responses,  I appreciate the clarification regarding MG-35 not using uPnP (not working with Twonky) but uses SMB.  I guess another part of my goal was to have multiple computers access the same library (twonky library) and play music from there.  I am hoping for something that would access the data that Twonky collects like, most recent played items, most often played, and playlists (I think Twonky Media Server can do all that if configured properly).  This would allow all the listeners to benefit from each others listening experience (assuming their taste in music is similar, which in my case we have similar tastes). I am not sure if there is another method or way to go (maybe an easier solution) about allowing access to one itunes library, or shared library of some sort.

[Twonky Media Server on Unraid]

First off I would like to thank parsec for the great topic "how-to Twonky Media Server" http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=729.msg4795#msg4795

I had no problems installing Twonky.  I am able to browse via firefox (using http://"UnRAID IP":9000 )to view the media content, but I am struggling to get itunes, "windows media player", or MediaMonkey to play/(allow viewing or listening) the content on an XP desktop.  Can anyone shed any light on this what is the best program to access the content via MAC and the best for XP Pro.  I also need a few recommendations as to a standalone media player.  I did read where a AlTech MG-35 will do the job ( http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1226.0 ).  I went to Twonky's site but can't find any description or how to for connecting to twonky once twonky is installed.  I thought that this could be a firewall issue so I closed my fire wall program down, but still no luck.  Thanks for any help.  Also... I am assuming that Twonky is the way to go as far as a media server, but maybe someone has comments on that also (don't know if twonky could do the pics and music and a different product could server up the movies).

 

As far as what I intend to use Twonky for is pics, music, and movies. 

[Unable to connecto to Drive Shares in the morning]

Does the "cp /boot/mover /usr/local/sbin/mover" need to be the first line, last line, or does it really matter where it goes in the "go" script? (not sure if you saw this question buried in my last post so I am posting again.  Thnaks for the links for the other commands.

[Unable to connecto to Drive Shares in the morning]

I was able to get to my share drives this morning without any issues.  I also was able to get to the unRAID user interface via a browser.  Thanks for the fix Joe.

OK, just be aware, the file will be replaced with an un-edited version every time you reboot the server.

 

You might want to copy your newly edited version of "mover" to your flash drive.

 

Log in as root, then, at the command line:

cp /usr/local/sbin/mover /boot/mover

 

To copy it back:

cp /boot/mover /usr/local/sbin/mover

 

In fact, once you have a copy on your flash drive, you might want to add that exact line to the end of the "go" script in the /boot/config folder.  That way, every time you reboot, it will use your edited version.

 

Joe L.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the edits going away after a reboot.  I copied the mover file to the flash via "cp /usr/local/sbin/mover /boot/mover" and I did go in to edit the "go" script, but I was not sure if "cp /boot/mover /usr/local/sbin/mover" needs to be the first line, last line, or does it really matter?  Also, is there a thread that covers a majority of commands that would be good adds to the "go" script or other files?

[Unable to connecto to Drive Shares in the morning]

I was able to get to my share drives this morning without any issues.  I also was able to get to the unRAID user interface via a browser.  Thanks for the fix Joe.

[Unable to connecto to Drive Shares in the morning]

I have not done any editing to unRAID, prior to this.  I telneted in and typed mc for midnight commander and then used the up and down arrows along with the enter key to navigate around to the "/usr/local/sbin/mover" location, then I used used the esc key along with the "4" key to edit the file.  I arrowed down to the command line and removed the "-v" as recommended by Joe L.  Thanks to Joe, I figured out how to do the editing from a different topic http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1922.0

I will try out "mcedit file_name" on my next go with editing, but I will have to do more homework to try "vi" (any good links for using "vi" with unRAID ??)

The "! -exec fuser -s {} \;" command as Joe mentioned would be released in 4.3.2, and by the time I made the edit above I had just upgraded to 4.3.2 so I did not have to add "! -exec fuser -s {} \;" because it was already there.

I would of fixed this sooner but had to much stuff going on. I should know by tomorrow am if this fixes my issue.  Thanks for everyones help.

[Unable to connecto to Drive Shares in the morning]

Are there any disadvantages to disabling the logging entries (are they used by unraid to figure out what files need to be deleted from the cache drive at a latter time or doe unraid delete the file as it is copied/moved to the share drive?)?  At the moment it seems that I have to disable it so there is an immediate advantage.

I discovered that in between log entries there was some info I missed and should of put in the file I uploaded, so I have uploaded a new file with this missing info, which is labeled as ********* "Section I missed when uploading the file the first time"

 

I am in the process of recovering files from a 500gig drive.  I am using virtuallab or by binarybiz to recover the data.  There were a lot of files on the drives.  Mostly files I probably will never use but I keep archived just incase there is a need for this old data.  The files my programs produce for one project could be 200 or so.  I do multiple projects a day and some times rerun the same project 3 or 4 times to try and get better results, and if you figure 13 years of doing that plus some redundancy of old back ups and the files start adding up.  I am always short on house cleaning time and I still have not found a "round-to-it".  I have tried to delete all the starting and closing info in the syslog file and only have the logging entries that shows line by line what file is being handled, then copy and paste these lines to excel so I could see how many lines there were, but excel says that it could not handle all the lines (excel only allows for something like 66,000 lines)  I can't figure out ow to get a count on the qty of entries so we can see how many files were handled.

If the logging entries don't really help much and I can go without, then I will just make the change as suggested by Joe. 

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Unable to connecto to Drive Shares in the morning]

Attached is my syslog.  Just at first glance, it looks like the mover is struggling to move lots of files or the mover has to create a file for every file moved and ends up eating up space which is causing the problem.

[Unable to connecto to Drive Shares in the morning]

I have the syslog, I used "cp  /var/log/syslog  /boot" at a telnet prompt this morning after the problem but before a reboot.  I then powered down took the thumb drive (boot drive) over to my xp machine to open the syslog, and noticed the file syslog is 438mb.  I am not sure if that is or is not normal.  I need to know how many pages or to what point in the file do you need info from?

 

My spin down delay is one hour

[Unable to connecto to Drive Shares in the morning]

I recently installed a DS-3151SSBK (5 drives in 3 bays).  Everything is working fine after the install except that every morning when attempting to access a drive share, I can't access any nor disk shares.  I also cannot access the unraid user interface via the ip address.  I have to go over the server shut it down and start it back up, then I can access the unraid interface and the disk and user shares.  I don't think I change any settings in the mother board bios, and I did not do any up grades at the time that I was installing the 5 in 3.  I am not sure how to correct this.  Thanks for any help.

I am not sure if any specs are needed but my unraid is 4.3-beta6 and I am using xp-pro.

[User Shares and Cache Drive]

Thanks again NLS for expaling the difference between Disk and Share.  I found the documentation I was looking for and regarding includes and excludes. 

[User Shares and Cache Drive]

cache doesn't work with DISK shares, works with USER shares

 

even if you activated the use of cache for share "backup", by using O: (which is mapped to a DISK share), will not make use of cache

 

you have to map "backup" to make us of it

 

 

 

Thanks for the quick response.  So mapped disk share don't work with the cache.  I guess the only way around this is to have all files and folders for a given disk within a folder and then share that folder.

For now I am going to create some mapped network drives that point to user shares instead of DISK shares. So one of the maps I created was V:\ is mapped to \\tower\backup, which should take advantage of the cache disk.  I am assuming that any sub-folders under "backup" will take advantage of the cache disk also.

 

 

Any comments or tips on what to do with the following options:

 

Split level:              (I left this blank)

Included disk(s):    (I left this blank)   

Excluded disk(s):    (I left this blank) 

 

 

Thanks again for the quick response.

 

[User Shares and Cache Drive]

I just installed a Cache Drive and enabled User Shares, but I have no idea how the two work together.  I have a parity drive, 5 disks, and the cache disk.  I use disk one the most, for all my docs and data.  Disks 2, 3, 4, and 5 are being use as locations for taking data of of dvds, cds, and older drives (they will most likely not get used much, but are there when I need to gain access to my archives.  I am trying to understand if I have to change the way I copy/create new files, folders, now that I have a cache disk.  I currently copy/create files to a networked drive called o:\ (which is really \\tower\disk1).  What I don't know or understand is weather there are extra steps that I have to take to make sure I am taking advantage of the cache disk.  I do have "User cache disk" for the folder I am writing to set to "yes", I have the "comments" blank, I have "allocation method" set to "High-water", I have no info in split level, included disk(s), excluded disk(s), and I have export mode set to "Export read/write"

 

Share name:          Backup

Comments:            (I left this blank)

Allocation method:  High-water

Split level:           (I left this blank)

Included disk(s):    (I left this blank)

Excluded disk(s):    (I left this blank)

Use cache disk:      YES

Export mode:     Export read/write  (I did not select Export read/write hidden)

 

My understanding is if I write a new file to O:\ then the file actually gets written to the cache drive and then at the designated time the MOVER moves the file to o:\ (disk1)

If I am assuming correct, then I would think that I would see the files appear on the cache disk, but they would disappear when they are moved by mover.

I set up the cache disk as a mapped network drive to test this out, but I was unable to see the newly created files.

 

Can someone help with explaining Shares to me or can someone point me to a thread that explains shares.  I have looked and can not find anything that explains shares in conjunction with the cache drive.

It seems that I have to have shares enabled to take advantage of the cache disk.

 

Thanks for any help you can give.  (by the way I am running Win XP Pro)

 

I just tried something else that got me a little further, which was to access the user share by going to \\tower\Backup and I attempted to create a file there and by doing it this way the newly created file is showing on the cache disk.

 

Do I have to access the drive via \\tower\backup in order to use the cache disk? It looks like I need to disconnect all my mapped network drives seeing I mapped them via \\tower\disk1 etc, and remap them as \\tower\Backup (or share name.)

 

It looks like I answered my question, but I still don't know what to do with :

Split level:           (I left this blank)

Included disk(s):    (I left this blank)

Excluded disk(s):    (I left this blank)

 

Nor do I know how to allow a whole drive to have access to the cache drive.

 

:)Thanks for any help, and I hope the above helps someone else.

 

[Moving Data off old drives...]

I guess I could perform a parity check, but unraid says parity is valid (I am still learning about when to check parity, so an comments on this would be great, and if anyone see issues with what I did above please comment).

Albin

Albin,

 

Good to know your file copy worked. Hopefully, Tom will add  NTFS filesystem support back in soon.  However...

Your  parity is now out  of date.  (almost worse than not having it at all)

 

You must now re-calculate party on the unRaid server.   You did your file copy when it was not looking (booted up on the other CD), so the current Parity contents  do not know of any of your new files. 

 

Please, force  a parity check now... sooner even,  as your existing, out of date parity data would clobber/manngle the contents of any  drive you attempt to recover using  it. 

Expect the parity check to find many errors.  In this case they are expected, and will be because the current parity calcs were done on the original contents of your target drives. (before you copied  the ntfs data to on the unRaid disks)

 

Once the parity check has run to completion, you will be protected again.

 

Joe L.

 

 

Joe,

 

Thanks for filling me in on the need for a Parity Check.  I am going to copy over several gigs to the UnRaid drive via Slax and then I will be sure to force a Parity Check.

 

Albin