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Thanks everyone for the help and detailed explanations. It looks like the continuous cache activity and low-level SSD writes I was seeing are normal behavior for an Unraid server with active Docker containers, and not an indication of any underlying issue. @CandleSir's clarification regarding SSD endurance was especially reassuring, and I also appreciate the suggestions about using htop/i-o monitoring to further inspect activity if needed. I’ll go ahead and mark this issue as solved, at a later time. Keeping it open for now, just in case. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to help!

Thanks guys. @Kilrah So this continuous cache activity is probably normal, I am guessing, as long as even a single container is running. But when I say “cache activity,” I don’t just mean that the cache drive stays active I’m also seeing constant writes to the SSD, sometimes up to around 600-800 KB/s even while the server is basically idle. Now why is that happening or Is that considered normal too?

That makes sense.Docker services are indeed enabled under Settings, so that probably explains why the cache drive never seems to go completely idle. What I'm still trying to understand is whether this continuous SSD cache activity is considered normal behavior in Unraid, or if there’s something misconfigured on my system causing unnecessary activity. If this isn’t normal, is there anything I can do to reduce or prevent the constant cache drive usage while the system is otherwise idle?

Hello everyone, I'm running Unraid 6.12.15, and I'll attach my diagnostics below. I'm noticing that my cache drive appears to stay active constantly, even when no VMs or containers are running. CPU usage remains around 7–8% at idle, which seems unusually high. I wanted to troubleshoot this further using File Activity and Open Files, but unfortunately those plugins are not compatible with my current Unraid version, so I'm a bit stuck on how to identify what's causing the activity. I'd really appreciate it if someone could take a look at the diagnostics and help me understand what might be happening. Thank you! tower-diagnostics-20260517-1158.zip

Well. It took less longer this time and went pretty well. Parity checked with no errors. Thanks alot Jorge.

On it. Will get back in 28 hrs.

I built this unraid server about 6 months ago. It'ss been working fine for the most part. I do have the server on a 24/7 UPS backup but somehow the UPS itself malfucntioned. Long story short, it was an unclean shutdown and when power was restored and the server came back online it did not automatically started a parity check, because one of the disk (disk1) was showing as "Unmoutable disk Present". Not knowing What exactly to do next I tried rebooting the server, plugged in and out the disk a few times and viola it came back on like a charm. Anyways, after that I cant exactly remember wether it did start the parity check automatically or I did it. But 28 hrs later it gave out a warning that 515 errors were found after Parity check completed. I always have the server to auto correct errors on scheduled parity checks (once a month) but I don't know if this setting was enforced. I havent done anything on the server for the parity since then cuz quiet hoenslty I dont even know what to do. Attaching diagnosis here in hopes to get proper advice. FYI I am a windows guy and not familiar with commanad line. tower-diagnostics-20231116-2115.zip

Thank you guys. This was really helpful.

Hi. I have been using Unraid Basic version user for little over six months. My current setup is Cache 2 disks. Parity 14 Tb X 1. Array 8Tb + 4Tb + 2Tb. So currently, Array capacity = Parity capacity My understanding was and still is that The array storage capacity shouldn’t be more than the parity’s storage capacity Am I right here or there’s something I am not getting at all ? I know somewhere down the line I will have to increase my array capacity. let’s say I want to replace my 2Tb disk with 14 Tb disk, would that be possible without adding another parity drive with my current basic version? Thanks.

I have connected an LCD with the server and tried booting it again but I am guessing the bootable system is broken. if this is likely, how can I restore the flash usb. Is it even possible to install via the same flash drive ? Should I just format the flash drive and manual install Unraid ?

The USB Drive Is new. I used this for trial version for a few days before buying the basic key just a three days ago.

Hi, I am running 6.11.5 on HP Z820. First time user, its only been a week now. The server had a few unclean shut downs due to faulty PSU but parity was valid (I hope it still is). Today I attached an external USB disk for data transfer using SpaceInvader’s "krusader" guide (Part 2 of a 4 part series). While transferring the data a notification about the same external drive getting hot popped but I couldn’t see for much long (only that the disk was at 47C which shouldn’t be too hot for an external disk) before the server shutdown. After disconnecting the drive I tried booting the server again but it never booted. After a couple failed attempts I took the Unraid USB flash and inserted in Windows 10 just to have look and I found that the 16 GB USB FLASH drive is full of unknown files or at least unknown to me. Have no idea what are those. As I said earlier first time user and have no Linux or command line experience so please go easy on me. I am attaching the diagnostic file found on the USB which is from a couple a days ago. But the interesting thing is the presence of unknown files in USB I don’t know what are these but I am attaching screen shot My sole method of connecting to the Unraid is webgui through Windows 10 machine but it no longer works. So don’t know what to do next. tower-diagnostics-20230528-1600.zip

Now that the bootable flash drive with free trial is ready I hope, I am wondering what would be the first thing to do after first boot. I mean ,the flash creator utility helps in setting up server name and DHCP etc and I have been so narrow on using this utilitly that havent looked elsewhere. Whats booting like after manual install method ? I am hoping to set it up once server is ready at the shop but the remaining of the stuff like pretesting drives and transfer of data is going to be where the server is going to live for the rest of its life. So any advice for me guys ?

This worked. The root or top level of the flash drive now has more files showing. I ran the script for making bootable. Hope thats it. Thanks a bunch guys.

Hi, Thanks for your reply. There were actually none. just two folders. Oh great. Wish I had known this yesterday. Thank you again.