johnieutah

Ok, drive cleared - COMPLETED. Extended test run - PASSED. End SMART test still showing 1 current pending sector. Doesn't the powerdown plugin write SMART reports to a log file on shutting down? If so I can probably dig them up from my Unraid 5 server build, maybe that would then at least show if the current pending sector was there before?!? Next steps - I can try replacing the jumper, I could live with it I guess... Thanks for the help guys.

I can always stick the jumper back in and then set it back to MBR unaligned, or is that not going to help at all?

Thanks for the prompt reply. Out of interest, how does the WD tool differ from a pre-clear - I thought that went through writing 0's to the drive as well? Cheers.

Am I reading this right, there are >65k current pending sectors!?!?! (see screenshot in post 1)

Thanks for the info. So I basically need to run a pre-clear cycle on it, and hopefully it will be resolved. Brilliant, I just finished restoring 2TB of data on to it. Does anyone know if this is anyway connected to the removal of the jumper?

A question regarding 'current pending sectors': Some history first... I am in the process or building a new Unraid 6 server, and am reappropriating disks from my Unraid 5 build, one of which being a WD20EARS drive. Previously I had the drive jumpered and set to MBR unaligned. With the new build, I have removed the jumper and reformatted in XFS. I did not do another pre-clear. Now I am in the process of rsyncing all my data back on to the server, and playing around with the nice new Unraid 6 UI, I noticed one line in orange: Current Pending Sector (see attached screenshot). Any ideas if this is actually a problem or if there is anything I should do? Cheers!

Many thanks for the replies and links, I understand it much better now.

Yeah I guess my question is, whether removing the jumper will somehow change the firmware permanently, or if I can simply replace the jumper and reformat in ReiserFS should I ever need to put the drive back in to an Unraid 5 server.

Update on this. I just whipped the jumper off and chucked the WD20EARS in to my Unraid 6 build. I am seeing a partition format as "unknown" and no way to set aligned or not (see pic). I'm guessing this is all in order and I can go ahead and reformat as XFS. If necessary, will Unraid 5 then read this disk ok later on - assuming I reformat as ReiserFS? Thanks.

Just to chime and say what everyone else here is saying... this is a fantastic plugin. Thanks for the hard work gfjardim

Update: got it working no problem. You know what the problem was? I'd been clicking "Done" on the disk settings page (where you choose the disk format), instead of "Apply". Amateur mistake I know, but I do think these buttons need to better either better distinguished either visually or renamed or something. To me "Done" does not = "cancel" which is what it is doing in affect, i.e. go back without saving. Anyways, its working. What we need next is a nice big "shut down" server button on the main tab ;-)

Ah, I never did a reboot - that's probably it. But I did let it rebuild parity. Which worked fine. As to the 2nd point... I have a test server with some test data. Now I want to migrate my "real" hard drives across. I want to do this in as cleanly as possible and start a fresh, adding the drives one by one, reformatting them to XFS as I go along. So tonight, I will try your suggestion of setting the drive to BTRFS (for example), rebooting the server, then setting it back to XFS and hopefully that will give me the format drive option.

Hmm, I tried this and when I tried to start the array it simply rebuilt parity. I will try again tonight. Once I switch out these drives that I've been using to test Unraid 6, Unraid will always try and rebuild parity on to my new drives right? - there's no way to tell it to "start new and forget the old config / data" is there? Thanks.

Hi all, currently running the trial version of Unraid 6 RC4. Is it possible within the web UI to simply reformat a disk? I know I can change the file system type when the array is stopped, but if I want to keep the current FS, XFS, but just clear the drive, will this work?

Cheers mate

Sorry for all the questions, but what was the original reasoning for needing the jumper on WD EARS drives, something to do with Unraid not supporting advanced format drives right? So now Unraid 6 supports these larger drives, I can remove the jumper, use the default 4k-alignment... do I need to preclear again, or will a simple reformat in XFS take care of things? Edit: I've noticed on my old Unraid 5 server, the alignment was set to "unaligned" (with the jumper). Thanks once again.

If you remove the jumper on the HDD, you need to reformat the drive and consequently loose all data. Performance wise it doesn't matter whether the jumper is used or not. So to be clear, I should remove the jumper and then reformat in XFS for Unraid 6? Thanks. I will be reformating in XFS anyway... I am just wondering if I will need to watch out for anything in the setting up of the new unraid 6 server, 4k alignment or something?!? Just want to be 100% sure this weekend. Thanks. The default partition format is set to MBR 4K-aligned (unless you have changed it), if you remove the jumper and reformat the disk, it will be done with the correct setting.

If you remove the jumper on the HDD, you need to reformat the drive and consequently loose all data. Performance wise it doesn't matter whether the jumper is used or not. I will be reformating in XFS anyway... I am just wondering if I will need to watch out for anything in the setting up of the new unraid 6 server, 4k alignment or something?!? Just want to be 100% sure this weekend. Thanks.

Since I would be upgrading with everything "fresh" so to speak, should I make any changes to a jumpered WD20EARS drive that I have?

Drive supports USB3, but my (old) server only supports USB2. So USB 2 then :-) It's completely new and NTFS formatted... I have heard that the linux NTFS drivers aren't that great, I guess I just expect something closer to what I get on my Windows laptop, using USB 2 40MB/s shouldn't be a problem.

Hey guys, great guide. I am currently doing a completely new build, reformatting all drives in XFS, new usb key etc... One thing I have noticed - and maybe this is the wrong place - but I am performing an rsync to backup all data to external USB drive... and it is dog slow. ~15/16MB/sec according to rsync output. I would have expected much faster read performance, and I know the external drive can support fast writes. This caught my attention: Is it possible reads from a very full ResiserFS drive are also slow? Could that explain the problem? The drive is a 2TB WD Ears, I think it has ~75GB free.

Am I right in thinking this plugin will allow me to run an SSD outside the array for my docker containers?

Thanks for the replies. No I will almost certainly get shot of it, too big and clunky. I have considered this, but without sounding tight, I refuse to pay more for WD Red drive than I did last year, which is the current price scenario here in Germany Backups would only be made onto external drives. Once the migration is complete, then I would have some smaller drives lying around which I shall make use of for the more important stuff. Thanks, sounds sensible. Just to be clear, popping an old Reiser formatted drive in to the new build won't kick off a parity build straight away will it? I should be able to select the drive from the UI and then tell it that I want to format it as XFS?

Hello all, I am currently in the process of moving my old Unraid 5 server to a new Unraid 6 build. Key facts are I don't have a single spare drive that is equal to the largest drive in the old array (I simply have a couple of external 1TB drives) and I want to make use (of course) of XFS on the Unraid 6 server. Is it possible for me to take my 3TB parity out of the old server and transition that to the new server, whilst still being able to access the old server and copy data to the external drives (array will be unprotected)? Once I have cleared off a 2TB data drive from the old server, and place it in to the new one, do I need to pre-clear this again, or just re-format from the GUI as XFS? Many thanks for the advice.

I am moving from Unraid 5 to 6 as well, and have very limited hard drive space to use as temporary storage. Unfortunately I don't have a drive equal to the largest one in the array (2TB). I only have 2 x 1TB external drives. Is it possible to do an rsync command that will only do 1TB worth of data, or will I have to manually split and copy the directories over? Is this the best way forward given my situation? I want to start from fresh in 6. Once data is copied off a drive and put in to the new array, I will reformat as XFS. What's the best way to build the new server, should I add drives one-by-one or add them all and then calculate parity? Thanks guys.