S80_UK

Since I need to work on the server later in the week I decided to try uninstalling and re-installing the plugin - it had previously been updated on multiple occasions. Uninstall was uneventful. I decided to reboot the server before a clean install of the plugin. However, for reasons unknown the server rebooted and went straight into a parity check. I used the normal Reboot button in the web UI so I don't believe it should have done that. Anyway, I will now let that run through until tomorrow and then I have a couple of hard disks to swap around for a capacity upgrade, so I shall get back to this in a day or so.

Something strange... I updated the plugin three days ago to the current version (2021.01.03) (main server running 6.9.0-rc2). I did not touch the settings at that time which were to use increments, starting at 01:00, pausing at 08:00, repeat until done. Last night (first Wednesday in the month) the check started. The check was still running at 10:00 (should have paused at 08:00) and finished at 12:42. There was nothing in the syslog at the time that it should have paused, although I did not have debug logging enabled for the plugin. I did notice that the notifications for start and end of the check were duplicated. Previously I only ever had one of each. I also received two emails telling me that the check had finished - one titled "unRAID Status: Notice [TOWER-V6] - Parity check finished (0 errors)", the second titled "unRAID Status: Non-Correcting Parity Check finished (0 errors)". Previously I only had the usual start and finish emails. Would it be better to reinstall the plugin and try again, or would it be helpful if I could capture some debug logs? Or both?

One other possibility... Make sure that your SATA cables are not bound together with cable ties. It looks neat and helps airflow, but it can also allow crosstalk between the cables to cause signal quality problems.

I am not sure whether you're aware, but if the server is on 24/7, then there is no need to have the UPS on the network. Apcupsd on the server would let an apcupsd slave that is setup on the network know to shut down if there is a power failure. I am sure you can do it the way that you suggest, but the master-slave method works for me. For what it's worth, I have both my Windows 10 PC and my backup server set up as slaves. Some more info in this thread...

Just for info - there are many keyboards with the Euro symbol - even my UK layout Logitech keyboard (over 10 years old) has it. In my case it's on the 4 key, along with the dollar sign. Control-Alt-4 gives € in this case. It's the same on my Dell laptop too. Or if don't have the key marked but you have a numeric keypad, press and hold Alt while pressing 0 1 2 8 - that would be the way that many less common characters can be entered (and that method goes right back to the days of using DOS for some of us).

Also , just to fill out the picture, what was the "old server"? Was it an Unraid system, or something else? That would make quite a difference to the advice people give you. And for completeness, if it was Unraid, can you provide a little more info, such as what version, filing systems in use (if known), etc.?

Many here were lurkers before becoming users - in my case, that was around 10 years ago. Welcome! Learn and enjoy...

I still have five 2TB Hitachi drives bought in late 2011 - still going strong, and no issues in the SMART data either.

As far as I am aware, for DVDs and normal HD blu-rays, MakeMKV does not have specific requirements (although I only use MakeMKV under Windows). If you need to rip 4K blu-rays, then MakeMKV has very specific requirements that the drive be one described as "UHD friendly". This thread on the MakeMKV forums gives pretty comprehensive details. https://makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19634 (Hope it's OK to link to there from here...) Note that for some drives, the firmware needs to be earlier than a specified version, and downgrading from later versions may not always be possible (lots of details in that thread). For what it's worth I use the Asus BW-16D1HT, but bought 2 or 3 years ago. Edit: I should add that I only rip to my server - I don't generally play from the optical drive. The only time the disc gets played properly is very rare and in the Blu-ray player under the TV...

The log says Asus Q170T - right? Are you using an external 19 volt supply? If so, then it will be deriving the 12 volts for all of your drives via an on-board regulator, and I suspect that this regulator may be the limiting factor when connected to multiple drives. it would not surprise me that drives may show strange errors from time to time. Another possibility could be fact that all the drives get their power from that board via a single SATA power connector which could also cause possible disk power issues. I have a very similar Intel board, but not in an Unraid application, and I decided to only lightly load the power supply for this very reason. These kinds of boards are great for small systems, but I feel they are probably at their limits with multiple drives connected.

@jonathanm is correct. With a single parity drive, then if more than one disk fails you lose the data on those disks, so with one parity and three data disks if two disks fail then you would lose one or two data disks depending on whether the parity disk was one of those that failed or not. So long as you have a reliable backup, then I would go with extending the array in this case.

Well done! And welcome to the forum. I've been using Unraid almost 10 years - not an expert though - but I find it very reliable, and it does exactly what I need.

@Maruco - You say that you have a small IT support company. In that case you would understand that support has to be paid for otherwise the support company does not make money and does not survive. It seems to me that your client has no right to expect any support for software that they have been using that they have not legitimately paid for. Equally, until tha situation changes, I would not expect anyone here to help either. Everyone on this forum who is a user of Unraid and a customer of Lime Technology has paid for their license. Most are home users and small businesses many of whom have paid for more than one license. We sometimes ask for help, we sometimes give help to others, but that is on the understanding that Unraid is the work of a very small company who cannot support all users individually and therefore we are happy to share our knowledge and experience. That goodwill is limited, however, and in my case would not extend to supporting anyone who is trying to profit from the work of others while trying to avoid payment. You say that your client is willing to purchase a license if you can repair their system? They already know that Unraid can do the job - they had it working before these problems. So they should buy a license and if they cannot solve the problems themselves then they could engage you to help them and pay you a reasonable fee for the work. As commented above this has already cost them money; and now it is costing you money. If they understand business, then they should understand this kind of support has to be paid for somehow. If they don't understand that, then in my view you should walk away.

@coldhammer - how many errors are you seeing? Is it the same each time? I always used to get 5 errors per parity check when using an SAS2LP. In my case it was solved by obtaining a different type of card - Dell Perc H310 flashed to IT mode.

Hi... I just thought I'd chip in with my expereince. I installed the daapd Docker a couple of months ago on my Unraid server to try it with my elderly Roku SoundBridge audio streamers. I still use them since they work extremely well, despite being 13 - 14 years old. I work in consumer audio so use I multiple server programs and I have been using Twonky Media Server and AssetUPnP for some years. Since Unraid went to 64 bit I have been unable to run the old Firefly Media Server which Roku used to recommend (it was 32 bit), but I always slightly preferred the user experience with Firefly over Twonky and was keen to get back to that. I had tried this daapd Docker in the past but without success. I cannot say whether the issues that I had previously were down to the software, or perhaps my lack of experience with Docker, but this time around I set it up without issues, and so far it "just works" and appears very stable. I have a reasonably large audio library (over 18,000 files, all ripped from CDs), and all well tagged. I have had no issues related to poor tagging, large album art, or the use of Chinese and other Asian character sets (I have almost 3000 such files). I did have one strange problem - I had one more file detected by the daapd scan than by the other servers. I found that it was picking up a duplicate file that had a filename extension that was not related to audio - something.tmp I think. So daapd was looking in files other than those with expected filenames such as .mp3, .m4a, etc. I just wonder whether the scanning of unrelated files might be tripping up the software for those users that have problems. In my case, I just removed the .tmp file and the total file count from the scan was then correct. For what it's worth, I am not using daapd with iTunes or other daapd clients than my SoundBridges.

Hi - Unless I missed it, there is little mention above of the significant disadvantages of the RAID 5 approach. Firstly, all of the drives need to be the same size. You cannot mix and match as needed, which you can do with Unraid. You can't upgrade your parity drive and a data drive to new larger drive sizes while still leaving your old data on much smaller drives. With Unraid that's easy, meaning that you can expand storage as and when needed and using drives based on your needs rather than the needs of the existing array. Second, what happens if two drives fail? With Unraid, you can take any data drive out of that machine and read it on another Linux system since each disk (except the parity disk) contains a stand-alone file system and no files are spread across more than a single drive. If you lose two drives from a RAID 5 array you often effectly lose everything. If you have a second parity drive in Unraid, you can have have two drives fail and still suffer no data loss; lose three and you only lose the data on those drives. So rather than looking at the licensing etc, I would look at how you use the system, how future proof is it, and how robust is it in the event of a multiple drive failure (and they do happen sometimes). THe only plus of RAID 5 is that it may be faster when writing, and even that can be mitigated by using a cache drive or the "reconstruct writes" setting for the array.

Understood - thanks. I now see where you're comig from. To be honest, I can't advise on your lockups and AD issues. I am not using any VMs, I have only light docker usage, the rest is regular shares and not much else. Also I have no practical experience of AD. For what it's worth, I have zero stability issues, with my server running for months on end, and the CPU's been at about 100% since April working for the folding@home project. The only downtime is when I choose to change something, and even then that's mainly just major updates. I get the point about preferring paid support - I have seen it discussed in the past, but I am unclear on the current situation - best to contact Lime Technology directly perhaps... https://unraid.net/contact

Yes, there is support from the company, and on this forum. But they are a limited resource, exist primarily on one timezone (as far as I am aware). There are many users here who are happy and willing to share their knowledge and experience and who are spread around the world. This works to everyone's benefit. The flexibilty that Unraid offers means that it is often highly likely that someone else has alread seen a problem similar to whatwever you may post, or they may be able to offer advice beacuse they have simlar hardware, etc. Forgive me saying so, but you seem deterimined to find the negatives while unwilling to see the positives. As an Unraid user for almost ten years, I have no issue with the support that the developers offer, and since in that time I have never had to pay for updates (I started with Unraid 4.7), I am happy to give back by helping others where I can.

Some routers need reserved addresses to be within the IP address range that they can allocate to devices (my Asus router does this). Others require reserved addresses to be outside the range of addresses that they can allocate (I have seen this in the past, I think on a Draytek router). But if Unraid is getting the address from your router and some time later you see a clash, then either the router is giving out a duplicate (unlikely unless it's not checking against it's own lists) or you have another device connecting to the network that has a manually configured IP address which clashes. So check other devices for manually set adresses. I would also check the IP range configured for DHCP in the router settings against the reserved addresses - and if it allows, set it so that the DHCP IP address range excludes the reserved addresses. If it doesn't allow it, then that's not the problem. One other possibility - you may have a range extender or mesh network where one of those devices also has a DHCP server which needs to be disabled. Some Eero mesh devices can do this if set to Auto rather than Bridge modes, for example.

Also just check that you are not overclocking CPU or RAM and check voltage settings in the BIOS. Those kinds of things can sometimes be a reason for unepected crashes or reboots.

Just a thought... If the SATA settings in BIOS were originally set to AHCI and reverted without user intervention, then it's just possible that the battery that keeps the BIOS settings CMOS RAM alive is in need of replacement. It's easy to forget, since they often last for very many years, but I have had a couple die on me in the past.

Unless the supply is faulty, that really should be fine. My main server has 12 drives, and runs very happily on a 520W supply (see my sig below). When very busy with the CPU fully loaded it draws about 150 - 200W from the mains supply. I have never seen over 300W even when all the drives spin up at once.

I don't have the network card, but I was looking at one for a while, ended up using USB with MODBUS protocol. However, I found this thread that may help - looks like it can be made to work with the network card...

Off topic, but not AAA either (they are also single cell). Possibly MN21, MN23, MN27 - there are others too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A23_battery#/media/File:A23-open-closed.jpg

Good info, thanks. I just know them as 3/16 and 1/4 inch types. They were probably not AA - you would not get the correct voltage. AA are single cell. But the smaller cylindrical types used for some remote control devices (older car entry, garage door remotes, etc) are commonly 12 volts are are made of a series stack of cells. I've used Tayna 2 or 3 times, both for UPS and for other hobby stuff. Never had any problems.