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Hi garycase/C3, Many thanks for the responses and the detailed information. Gary I read through your analysis per the post and tried to read danioj analysis as well (a bit over my head), but bottom line, I'll go ahead an preclear one of the disks at a time and see how they stack up. I really appreciate your responses to my questions. Is there any advantage to taking the drive out of the case vs using USB3 to preclear? Regards and Kudos! Dave

Hi garycase/C3, Thanks, just ran your hdparm command and got the following (pic). I can easily attach the drive to my Mac & connect to Windows via Parallels to clear the partition. There was an interesting article by Mr. Antman (England) checking a Seagate Archive drive in a Drobo which failed d/t the SMS type file structure being used. In summary the Write Head is larger than the Read Head, thus multiple writes to the HD means the data must be read (d/t size) then re-written. Not sure how that might affect Parity ? Interestingly he also tore apart a WD My Book 8TB and found a HGST mfg drive enclosed, but no details as to which series (desktop, green, purple, blue ...). Let me know if my drive would be ok for Parity and your thoughs about its SMS file structure if you have the time. Many Thanks for the replies! Dave

Check the reported size in bytes and see if it matches the normal 8TB size. If it's smaller, it could be either HPA, or the USB interface doing some funky translation, or it's simply a totally different model. Either way, if it's smaller, the only penalty is to make sure you never try to use it as a parity drive. The small size difference won't hurt anything if it's a data drive. Hi jonathanm, Thanks for the reply, unfortunately it will far exceed my largest drive (5TB's) so it must become Parity not Data. I've attached a copy of the Unassigned Drive details (pic) and it probably has an HPA included since 134 MB have been "used". It is currently formatted as NTFS which I will change to XFS before use. I've read through the Thread, but confess having some difficulty in knowing how to tell the actual size and/or how to delete the HPA if it exists. Dave

Hi Guys, Has anyone tried the 8TB Seagate Backup+ or Plus Hub external drives? I got 2 on Black Friday for a decent price (~ $170@). Others have removed the Sata drive and found it to be Seagate's Archive 5900 RPM drive which BlackBlaze seems to like (?). Just testing in external case as an Unassigned Drive at the moment, but seems quite good. Is there a way to check for HPA w/o directly mounting the drive into my UnRaid (ie cracking the case)? Dave

Hi Fireball3, Thanks for the response and suggestions. Sorry if there is more confusion. I guess that is what I need a Reverse breakout cable Sata>SAS (the TS440 came that way). I just found a 2 port PCIe x1 card for the Cache SSD's. If that works, I will try your suggested Reverse Sata>SAS breakout cable to run the other Cage with my current 4 port SATA card. At this time, I don't expect to run more than 8 HDs, though that is always subject to change. As they get bigger 6 or 7 + parity(s) should be sufficient If this doesn't work I'll revert to the LSI SAS3081E-R or an LSI 9240-8i or equivalent. Again many thanks for your recommendations and fantastic response w/regard to my questions. Dave

I'm not sure how many drives/slots you have actually! What is the main cage? I see a pic of the TS440 having those 2x4 in caddies and 2x5.25" slots. On board you have 4 S-ATA ports? Are the SSD's taking up 2 of those caddies? Then you are in need of just another 2 S-ATA ports? Possible solution, see next question. You can hook up the SSD's on the LSI SAS3081E-R since they are <2.2TB capacity. Use the PCIe4 card for hard disks instead. Assuming you add another 3in2 backplane into those 5,25" slots you end up with 11 drives. An expander solution is not cheap and you still need a SAS controller first - thus no option. An 8-port add-on controller together with the mainboard slots will suffice to connect all of your drives. 9240-8i based controllers (H310, M1015) can be bought for 30-40$ Do you plan to replace the board or what is this question related to? Hi Fireball3, Sorry I missed your reply earlier. I currently have the original Cage (4 Sata x 3.5" Drives) including my Parity Drive. The original Cage runs SATA to Sas from the MB (4 of the 5 SATA connectors. I added another Cage (4 Sata x 3.5 Drives) but do not have any additional SATA connectors available. I purchased a 4 port SATA PCIe x4 card to run my 2 Cache Drives. All I need is a SAS-SATA cable like the original one that runs the main cage to power my 2nd cage but it would only run 2 drives of the 4, though that might be a bit tricky. I suppose you are correct the in that I could use the LSI SAS3081E-R for the Cache drives, though I could not find an easy way to flash that card so it would be recognized by UnRaid. Too bad I can't find a 6-8 port PCIe x4 card cheap. The MB does have an older PCI card that might be usable and a PCIe x1 but since my 4 Port SATA card takes the PCIe x4 slot I'm left with the PCIe x16 (primarily graphics) so If I can find a "cheap" LSI 9240 - 8i then it could replace the PCIe x4 SATA Card and I could run the Cache off the MB. I had no intention of replacing the TS440 MB, poor ? just trying to find a SAS-SATA card that would already be set for IT (JBOD) mode. Suggestions? Dave

Hi Fireball3, Extraordinary analysis and continued support of SAS Raid Cards! My congrats and appreciation. As a "old-time®" newbie to a larger UnRaid Server, I would appreciate your suggestions for the "best" least expensive card to acquire. I bought a LSI SAS3081E-R but didn't realize its 2.2TB limitation (grr), but it was really cheap, so... My new UnRaid Server is a Lenovo TS440 with both Cages (8 3.5" drives) but the Main Cage supported on the MB uses all of the SATA ports thus requiring another SAS/SATA card. I was also able to purchase a PCIe4-SATA Card for my 2 SSD Cache drives that work very well. That leaves me with a PCIe x1 or a PCIe x16 and a regular PCI card slot unless I use an 8 port SAS/SATA card and change my Cache Drives to the MB. My alternative might be a SAS-SATA expander card if that is a better option. But at the moment, just looking for the easiest and least expensive direction. Regards and thanks again for your excellent work! Dave Anyone - what is the easiest SAS-SATA Board with innate IT capability? Or what is the ultimate re-flash goal (SAS 9240-8i) or Thanks

Hi gfjardim, Wonderful work on CrashPlan & Docker! For those of us (like me) who are older and not tech/docker savvy, is there a recommended CrashPlan setup (config files) from Server 1 (Tower) to Server 2 (Backup)? I've struggled with this for several months, and occasionally get it going only to have it "crash" (pun intended) again! I'm sure that it's not quite as complicated as it seems, but going between the Servers and identifying the actual files has become a nightmare for me. For example Backup Server 2 sees Tower, but trying to get to the Data Share and subsequent Directories etc. is nutz. Like most of us, I have Movies/Music/TV shares along with Data. I try to store most of my changing info into multiple Directories/Sub-Directories in the Data Share, but honestly many are inconsequential and if lost would not be tragic. What has been tragic was my mess-up last year with my Movies/Music shares. Yet they probably don't need to be backed up often (maybe once). So my issue is how to setup the "Backup Server" to 1) create a backup of Movies/Music/TV (and perhaps any update for new products as added) and 2) routinely backup my Data files (daily/weekly/monthly or )? The other confusion is whether I am backing up to a Specific Drive (location) or a Share on Server 2. If its a drive, that will be filled almost instantly but if its is a "share" then perhaps its split among several drives? I know this was a long description, but even talking with CrashPlan/Code42 staff has them scratching their respective heads. Any suggestions or recommendations would be most welcomed and appreciated! Dave

Freddie: Quick Update ? I did finally get some of my data back and am setting up my Backup Server per Gary. I do need to Consolidate/Move some of the Data around in order to have enough space for the Backup Server and am running a Test Move. Is there a command to halt the process/test and if not could that be added in your next iteration to both "diskmv & consld8". My moving file/directory is very large and it's still testing after 15 minutes with no way that I'm aware to stop the process. I just wanted to see if it would do what was planned! Thanks, Again GREAT PROGRAMS!!! Dave SOLVED: Closed my Telnet Session

Hi Freddie, I'd like to offer a Word of Caution to others using your wonderful diskmv and consld8 programs. They work exactly as planned but consld8 removes the data from a disk which could be used as a Backup for possible failure or Stupid actions, like mine. [see HELP PLEASE? by Archivist link=topic=43674.msg416774#msg416774 date=1445968491] Simply put, I consolidated all my Movies, Music, TV Shows on a new larger drive formatted in XFS and by accident started the Array in wrong order resulting in a total disaster with all of my 4+ years of work! Consld8 needs a command that would allow it to copy & combine files (eliminate duplicates) but retain the data on the old disks. As Garycase has noted, Backups are a Necessity not a Luxury (my paraphrase) http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31020.0 Dave

Hi Freddie, Sorry to be a bother, but I am trying desperately to both move & consolidate my files onto some larger disks. I have been able to download and install both diskmv and consld8 to my flash and can invoke either, but all I get back is 'disk1' is not a valid user share path. My command line is diskmv -f -k disk1 disk5 and I've tried putting it into "" and even adding Disk 1 as a Share, but to no avail. I'm sure that this is basic but it's driving me crazy. I need to move my disks 1-3 to my 5TB drive so that I can take them out of the array and replace with larger disks. Help from anyone else would also be appreciated. Thanks! Dave

Thanks Freddie, I really appreciate the info. My 5TB drive should accomodate all of my Movies (at the moment) and then some. As presently configured w/o "usr" directories/shares would the command be "consld8 -f /mnt/Movies disk5" or do I need the "/usr/" in the the command line? Thanks so much for your response and wonderful work! Dave

@Freddie, wonderful work ! For an "older user", it would be great to have this as a Plug-in similar to Pre-Clear. I'm in the process of upgrading an older server (its run out of gas) and have added a new 5TB Parity Drive + 5TB storage drive (XFS) to my Array. I still have several 1 & 2 TB's that I need to consolidate the data on, most of which will fit on the "new" 5TB drive & perhaps 1 x 2 TB or another new drive (TBD). My ? is do I run diskmv first then consld8? I have lots of /Movies, /TV, /Music, & Data Files spread between various disks. Currently the Array is started but w/o any Global Share Settings even though all disks were set-up with those Folders under the old UnRaid (V1 - whatever Tom named the first version before V4! - Yep I'm that "old" ). FYI - Most of the Movies files are in separate "name".TS Folders though a few have been converted to /apple/"name".MKV and the Music files are in both separate artist as well as combined folders. Thanks in advance for any assistance or help. Dave