maximusfacq

I can also confirm this process works. I have converted 6 of my 9 data disks to XFS from ReiserFS. I started by adding a new data disk as XFS. Then, migrated data from one disk to the next, stopped the array, changed the format setting, started the array, and hit the format button. It's really just that simple. Thanks @limetech!

Sorry my profile wasn't fully updated Joe L. I have resolved that issue. I'm leaning towards the drive because that's what's new, aside from the version of the preclear script that I'm running, and the fact that 4TB drives are a fairly new thing, still. I did just update from 0.9.8 to 1.13. I'd had no issue with the old script, but decided that being that we're dealing with these beastly drives, that it might be time to update. All that being said, there was only 1 more drive in the server than there had been, for the last year or so. And as far as I understand, the power supply I have should adequately support 10-12 drives. Currently, in the server, I have all drives drives listed in my profile, in addition to a 4TB WD Black drive. So, 6 drives in total. I am not using any splitters, as this power supply is modular. I only have enough cables plugged in to power 4 drives with their own power connection and 2 molex connectors that plugin to the SuperMicro 5in3. Because I have tried known-working cables and ports on the motherboard, and I've had no other indication of an issue, until now, the disk controller seems to be the most logical culprit to me. But, I'm coming here to seek the opinion of the experts, such as yourself, that have been at his for longer than me. So, feel free to continue picking apart my theory. I hope that between my updated profile and what's in this post, that all your questions are answered and you have further thoughts and/or questions. Thanks Much!

I'm running into a strange issue with a preclear on a brand-spankin' new 4TB Red Drive. So far, it appears to be a communication issue with the drive. I have tried: swapping cables, 3 different ports on the controller card (AOC-SASLP-MV8 - .21 Firmware) (All 3TB Reds and a 3TB Black are connected and functional on this controller), and 2 different ports on the motherboard (Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3/Z68MX-UD2H-B3, BIOS F10 09/01/2011). Each time, the preclear process fails. Below is a dump of the terminal session I was using for the preclear of the WD 4TB Red. Now, at first I thought this issue might be linked to the fact that I was using a 4TB drive. However, after the first couple failures with the Red, I received and unboxed the shiny new 4TB Black drive, that will become my new Parity drive. This one has run through the initial read and is 94% complete with writing 0's to the disk (Step 2). No issues whatsoever. The Red kept failing, much earlier in the preclear process. I expect the Black will complete as well. So, I'm thinking that it's just a bad controller or port on the drive. Perhaps Joe L. or someone else might be able to confirm my theory? I'd hate to have to RMA this drive. But, I'm not sure what else it may be and what other tests I might be able to do to confirm my theory. = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = = = = = = = = Elapsed Time: 11:48:18 ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 = = = = = = = Elapsed Time: 11:48:23 dd: writing `/dev/sdc': Input/output error 1+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000240163 s, 0.0 kB/s ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = = = = = = = Elapsed Time: 11:48:28 ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area = = = = = = Elapsed Time: 11:48:33 dd: writing `/dev/sdc': Input/output error 1+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000298369 s, 0.0 kB/s ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area DONE = = = = = = Elapsed Time: 11:48:38 ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area DONE = Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes = = = = = Elapsed Time: 11:48:43 dd: writing `/dev/sdc': Input/output error 1+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000254822 s, 0.0 kB/s dd: writing `/dev/sdc': Input/output error 1+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000137891 s, 0.0 kB/s ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area DONE = Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes DONE = = = = = Elapsed Time: 11:48:45 ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area DONE = Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes DONE = Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state = = = = Elapsed Time: 11:48:50 dd: writing `/dev/sdc': Input/output error 1+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.00133077 s, 0.0 kB/s ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area DONE = Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes DONE = Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state DONE = Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning = = = Elapsed Time: 11:48:55 ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area DONE = Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes DONE = Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state DONE = Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning DONE = Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries = = Elapsed Time: 11:49:00 Restarting udevd is STRONGLY discouraged and not supported. If you are sure you want to do this, use 'force-restart' instead. ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area DONE = Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes DONE = Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state DONE = Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning DONE = Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries DONE = Step 10 of 10 - Verifying the clear has been successful. = Elapsed Time: 11:49:10 ================================================================== 1.13 = unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdc = cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1 = Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE = Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE = Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE = Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE = Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE = Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area DONE = Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes DONE = Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state DONE = Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning DONE = Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries DONE = Step 10 of 10 - Verifying if the MBR is cleared. DONE = Elapsed Time: 11:49:15 ========================================================================1.13 == == SORRY: Disk /dev/sdc MBR could NOT be precleared == == out4= 00000 == out5= 00000 ============================================================================ 0000000 0+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 4.3782e-05 s, 0.0 kB/s root@UNRAID:/boot# preclear_disk.sh /dev/sdc Sorry: Device /dev/sdc is not responding to an fdisk -l /dev/sdc command. You might try power-cycling it to see if it will start responding. root@UNRAID:/boot#