SnowLprd

Hi folks. I’ve been an unRAID fan and user for over a decade, and now it’s time to build another system. In addition to storage, here’s what I want to use it for: * Plex Server / Radarr / Sonarr * Home Assistant / PiHole * Steam / PC games, presumably via Windows 10 VM Regarding the latter, I have an nVidia Shield Pro in the living room. I’d prefer to locate the unRAID tower in another room, so perhaps the Shield could be used via GameStream. I’ve never used unRAID to set up a gaming VM, so that’s all new to me, and I’m still trying to sort it out. I need to start by choosing a CPU + motherboard combo. I’d prefer AMD unless there are compelling reasons to choose Intel. I am leaning toward the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X because there aren’t many CPUs that have both: * 8 cores * low TDP (65W) My main question is the motherboard. My current target criteria are: * at least 6-8 on-board SATA ports * on-motherboard USB A (for the unRAID OS thumb drive) would be nice but not necessary * … what other criteria would you recommend? What CPU + motherboard combination would you choose if you were me? Any and all suggestions would be *greatly* appreciated! 😁

Many thanks for the quick response. The most important data is indeed backed-up off-site. While I would prefer to recover the non-critical data on disk6, I understand that may not be very likely. Given that I won't be in the vicinity of this machine for several months, I agree that it's unlikely I'll be able to fix this situation soon. What I would like to do now is determine the following: 1. What can I do to increase the likelihood that the data on the remaining drives (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) will remain intact and uncorrupted? I suspect those drives are connected to the motherboard's disk controller, while the others are connected to a (possibly failing) Supermicro PCI card. For the non-critical data on those drives that isn't yet backed up off-site, I'll begin to get as much backed up as possible, but that will take time and thus I'd to do everything I can to protect this data in the interim. Anything in particular I should be doing or not doing? 2. What do I do when I'm back in physical proximity of the machine? Presumably the Supermicro PCI card needs to be replaced, and the entire array needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Or is that not the case? Any suggestions on what steps I should take when I arrive?

My unRAID 6.5.2 system reported that disk6 (sdi) had been disabled. I had a same-sized, unassigned hot spare already in the tower, so I followed the instructions below to replace it with the hot spare (sdl). (I did not remove the disabled disk, as I am currently thousands of miles away from the tower and won't be near it for several more months.) https://lime-technology.com/wiki/Replacing_a_Data_Drive When I started the array, unRAID began to rebuild disk6. Shortly thereafter, however, there was a notification that there is a problem with the hot spare disk also. Shortly after that, another disk -- disk7 (sdj) -- showed up as unmountable. I have another disk in the array (disk8) that is empty, the same size, and could be used to rebuild disk6 (my first priority, if possible). That disk, however, was set up with encryption a while back, but it never seemed to work properly, always displaying "Unmountable: Unsupported partition layout" for unknown reasons. I didn't need the space on that drive at the time, so I figured I'd get around to reformatting it (unencrypted) at some point in the future. In short, it seems like three drives (two data drives, one hot spare) *might* have developed/exhibited problems all at once. I don't really understand what's going on. I should, in theory, have a working empty disk in the array (disk8) that could be used as a potential drive replacement. If at all possible, I would like to remove the empty disk8 from the array and use it to rebuild disk6. I don't know whether that's possible, and if so, how to proceed. More generally, I am looking for any and all recommendations regarding how best to move forward. I have attached a console screenshot and a diagnostics bundle. Any thoughts? Any other information I can provide that would be helpful? tower-diagnostics-20180818-0308.zip

As a result of recovering files from a data loss event, I have thousands of video files with names like “file892.mkv”. Anyone know if there’s a way to programmatically identify and re-name them? Perhaps something like Chromaprint/AcoustID, but for video files (i.e., TV shows & movies). Anyone know if such a solution — or any solution for that matter — might exist?

I see. Thank you for clarifying. I think the following is what led me to wonder:

In that scenario, how will the cache drive be treated? Will its data also be purged when doing Tools > New Config? If so, what should I do? I want to preserve the appdata on the cache drive, given that's the only part of the system that seems to have fully survived the data loss event.

This seems like sensible advice. I am preparing to transfer the first drive's recovered data over the network to the unRAID tower. In an effort to ensure that no writes (or filesystem/directory modifications of any kind) are made to any of the other drives, I disconnected power to all drives except the parity drive and the drive to which I intend to copy the recovered data. Upon powering up the Tower, I see that I cannot start the array, presumably due to the "Too many wrong and/or missing disks!" message. I assumed unRAID would allow me to temporarily ignore the missing drives and allow me to copy the recovered data to the single data drive, but clearly that is not the case. What should I do here? Is my worry about having data drives (from which data has not been recovered yet) powered up and connected an unfounded concern? Is it safe to connect everything back the way it was and start the array, as long as I don't actively make any writes? I suppose my main concern was any low-level garbage collection or other behind-the-scenes filesystem manipulation, but I have no idea if that concern is valid. Or is there another way I should be handling this? Any and all suggestions would be most welcome.

I have written up a data recovery plan and would deeply appreciate feedback so as to increase the odds of salvaging as much as I can. Done so far: 1. Confirmed that AppData was restored to new cache drive 2. Shut down unRAID Tower 3. Set up another machine with fresh installation of macOS 10.12.2 ("Sierra") Planned next steps: 1. Remove 4TB disk10 from Tower (that disk was empty until used as backup target for AppData; should still contain that backup) 2. Connect disk10 to Mac via SATA. Boot Mac. 3. Test UFS Explorer on disk10. Can it copy AppData backup to Mac's internal SSD? 4. Remove disk3 from Tower (that disk has least important/amount of data) and connect to Mac. 5. Use UFS Explorer to recover deleted files on disk3 and copy them to disk10. Do best to verify integrity of recovered files. 6. Copy recovered files from disk10 back to disk3 (assuming UFS Explorer supports copying un-deleted files) 7. Put disk3 back in Tower. Remove files from disk10 in order to free up space for recovering the the next disk's files. 8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 until files from all disks have been recovered and copied back to original locations. 9. Remove disk10 from Mac and put back in Tower. 10. Boot Tower, start array, and cross fingers. Does this sound like the most sensible plan? Anything seem unwise? Anyone have suggestions for improvement?

@Squid / johnnie.black: I was merely following what I believed to be the canonical instructions for replacing a cache drive. Step 4 reads:

After the Appdata Backup/Restore process deleted all the files in my array, I am now trying to recover data from the XFS-formatted disks. Does anyone know how I might do this without using a tool that requires Windows?

@johnnie.black: For what it's worth, I don't believe I selected /mnt/cache as the Destination Directory — I am fairly certain that field was populated that way by default.

Thank you both for the advice and encouragement. I am sincerely grateful for any and all guidance. I was indeed in a panic and rebooted the machine, so I'm not sure logs were preserved. I don't see anything that looks like log files/directories on the flash drive. Beyond the reboot and running the diagnostics, I have not performed any other actions, in hopes of soliciting advice from those more experienced with these situations. As suggested, I have attached the resulting output of Tools > Diagnostics > Download. Is there any other information I can provide to help determine what I should do next? tower-diagnostics-20161226-1817.zip

My goal was to upgrade my cache drive from an older 60 GB SSD to a larger 240 GB SSD via these docs. Following unRAID 6.2.4's Community Applications > Appdata Backup/Restore process as carefully as possible, I completed the appdata restore and immediately received notifications that multiple disks had returned to "normal" utilization levels. Puzzled, I looked through the disks in the array and noticed that they are 99% empty. Other than a few scattered files, it appears as though nearly everything in the array has been lost. I tried to re-trace my steps and see whether I did anything that could cause this. I performed the following before restoring the data: * 6.1.9 --> 6.2.4 upgrade didn't seem to create a "system" share, so I created it manually with "Use cache disk" set to: "Prefer" * I created a "docker" subfolder within "system" and enabled Docker to (re-)create a 20 GB file at: /mnt/user/system/docker/docker.img * I created an "appdata" share with "Use cache disk" set to: "Prefer" * I set "Default appdata storage location" to: /mnt/user/appdata/ * I used the default restore settings to restore: Source Directory: /mnt/disk10/CommunityApplicationsAppdataBackup Destination Directory: /mnt/cache My main question is... Is all my data truly lost? Is there nothing that I can do to recover it? Any and all assistance would be hugely appreciated. I feel sick. I thought I was being so cautious. Sincere thanks in advance for any help.

Everything appears well-seated. Currently running SMP memtest, which will probably finish tomorrow morning. No errors so far. I recently upgraded the CPU. Given that the new CPU has been performing well over the last week, how likely is it that it might be the cause?

Many thanks for the suggestion, mr-hexen. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to have had any effect. System hangs at boot at the exact same place. What do you think might be the next step in troubleshooting this problem? (I really appreciate any and all help with this. Logically, I'm sure I'll get it resolved, but it's still causing a bit of anxiety for me.)