AaronD

Ok, thanks for the info Jonathan. To clarify, I actually cleared configuration first because I wondered if this was a configuration issue from repurposing my old parity drive to be a data drive. It cleared the red ball, but didn't actually help the drive appear. So then I shutdown and reseated cables (which I should have done earlier following everyone's advice) and then it appeared. But definitately good advice.

You were right. I shutdown my server, reseated the cables, and the disk appeared. I also reconfigured the disks and reassigned everything to get a grey ball on disk 5, then assigned that disk. cleared and formatted the disk and it is now working fine. Thanks all for your advice.

Ok, I will check. However I think I am accessing the disk directly using \\tower\disk5. As i understand it, this is accessing the drive directly, not going through the array. I know today's plus licence can accommodate 5 data disks. But my licence is from 2011, and I thought the restrictions on number of disks may have been increased. Note, there never was a disk 5 originally. Remember, this disk is my old parity disk which I have turned into a new data disk to increase the array size.

I upgraded to 5.05 and it worked fine, and the array came online fine. However I still can't assign disk 5. I also notice I can access disk5 directly over a samba share, just can't assign it to the array. So assume the bios can see it. I've had my Unraid Plus licence for a while. I see that on the Unraid website it lists that the Plus key supports 6 data disks. Is it possible this has changed, and my licence only supports 4 disks? Maybe I'm running into a licence limit? I do have a cache and parity drive. Is there a way to see the licence restrictions on my rig? Thanks

trurl, you got it exactly right. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Attached is a syslog. I can't read them really, but I do see the following block repeated frequently. Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: mdcmd (1): import 0 8,80 2930266532 WDC_WD30EZRX-00D8PB0_WD-WMC4N1504230 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: md: import disk0: [8,80] (sdf) WDC_WD30EZRX-00D8PB0_WD-WMC4N1504230 size: 2930266532 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: mdcmd (2): import 1 8,64 1953514552 WDC_WD20EARS-00MVWB0_WD-WCAZA4560766 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: md: import disk1: [8,64] (sde) WDC_WD20EARS-00MVWB0_WD-WCAZA4560766 size: 1953514552 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: mdcmd (3): import 2 8,48 976762552 WDC_WD10EARS-00Y5B1_WD-WCAV56104077 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: md: import disk2: [8,48] (sdd) WDC_WD10EARS-00Y5B1_WD-WCAV56104077 size: 976762552 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: mdcmd (4): import 3 8,32 976762552 WDC_WD10EADS-00L5B1_WD-WCAU4D625148 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: md: import disk3: [8,32] (sdc) WDC_WD10EADS-00L5B1_WD-WCAU4D625148 size: 976762552 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: mdcmd (5): import 4 8,16 1953514552 WDC_WD20EARX-00PASB0_WD-WMAZA8442281 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: md: import disk4: [8,16] (sdb) WDC_WD20EARX-00PASB0_WD-WMAZA8442281 size: 1953514552 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: mdcmd (6): import 5 0,0 Mar 24 18:14:34 Tower kernel: md: disk5 removed Does this suggest it can't read the disk at the bios level? The weird thing is that it does report the disk correctly as 2TB in the GUI. It is probably a good idea to upgrade to latest stable, shutdown and check the cabling and confirm if the bios can see the disk. I'll try these things, but please let me know if you have any other suggestions. syslog.txt

Hi all, I have a system very similar to Johnm's Atlas server. It has been working very well for several years. I am running Unraid v5b12a, with 4 disks plus parity and cache. The disks in my array were almost full and I needed to add new new drive. Rather than adding another 2TB drive, I decided to replace the 2TB parity drive with a new WD Green 3TB drive, then reuse my old parity drive as a new data drive. I stopped the array and shutdown, and added the new parity drive to the HBA controller. After I started my server again, the Array was stopped and I was seeing a new drive. I changed the parity drive to select the new 3TB drive. I couldn't add the old parity at that time as drive 5 because unraid wouldn't allow me to until I had rebuilt the parity drive. I did that. Now I everything is working fine, except drive 5 has a red ball and shows "Not assigned". If I stop the array, the only option with drive 5 is "unassigned". Ie, I can't see the old parity drive showing up. Not that after the parity drive was rebuilt, it did allow me to select the parity drive and add it to disk 5, and it allowed me to select the "Format" button to format the disk. But since then the disk has disappeared. What am I doing wrong? How do I recover this disk, so I can add it to my arrange? Thanks Aaron

Thanks. I was just coming back to post that it must have been a configuration error. I found that if I set the split level to 99 (I don't care what it splits) then it started working. Still not sure why it didn't work if I set it to 1 (I have a user share called TVShows and basically didn't care how it split it below this) but it's working which is the important thing. Regards

Hi, Several weeks ago I moved from 4.7 to unRaid 12a. Shortly after I also moved onto a completely virtualised server using passthrough to access my disks from an LSI card. I was about to replace my cache drive with a new SSD, and I suddenly discovered that most of my recent TV shows are still sitting on my cache disk. Looking in the logs, I discovered that my disk1 share, where all TV Shows had been copying until now, is full. Also the mover script has been failing for weeks due to the full disk. It's been a while since I set up my user shares, so I had to quickly revise how things work in the wiki. I have checked the settings - it is set to a min free space of 5 GB and an allocation method of High Water, with split level set to 0, with no include or exclude disks. I tried manually creating a TVShows disk share on disk 2 (which has plenty of empty space) but when I run the mover script from the web GUI, it always appears to be trying to copy content to disk1 and fails. I've tried changing to "Most free" with no change, also added an include disk for "disk2" also with no luck. I tried changing the min free space, but it won't "stick" when I apply the change. It always reverts to High water. Syslog attached. Can anyone please help? I think the settings are correct, so I'm wondering if it is a beta issue? Note I also checked the user permissions and ownsership on the new TVShows disk share on disk 2 that I created, and it looks the same as disk 1. Thanks syslog.txt

Damn, two weeks too late. What's the part number, and have you seen them out yet?

My datastore is running on a 320GB laptop spinner, and the unraid disks are pased through from an LSI card - all green spinners. I have a cache drive also, but in this case I was reading from unRaid not writing to it. I have plans on doing something better with the datastore drives, but good things take time But you're right... I need to do more testing, familiarise myself with the system and how ESXi works, and work it through. I'm definately not panic-ing, more wondering how other people find performance. I know now that I have your 80MB/s as a bar to measure my performance against. Cheers Aaron

I'm sure it wasn't anything to do with your explanation that was at fault. I suspect I hosed by database when I was trying to shutdown unRaid before switching the USB over to the new server. I had problems getting it to shutdown properly, and ended up uninstalling the mySql package in the process. Perhaps one thing that tripped me up which you could mention as a small note. I took my datastore drive from an un-needed Linux build where it had been partitioned using GPT. ESXi complained about it during the Add Datastore wizard... a little googling and I was able to SSH into ESXi and use partedUtil to delete the extra GPT partitions, then proceed with adding the datastore again. Also, the Plop boot manager zip file I downloaded contains two ISOs - the first is in the root of the zip file, the second is in the install folder. The first one is, I guess, a live version of Plop; the second is the installer. In my haste I grabbed the first one... perhaps you could mention this again as a note to save anyone else confusion. But no complaints from me... one of the most painless experiences I've had, given the size of the change!

Great! I've never heard of turnkey before, what a great resource. I would love to save my DB from unraid, and I do have the physical database files. Any tips on how I can import them into a new database on this appliance? Also, for anyone who can help - I copied a 5GB file from my unRaid share to a Windows 2008 R2 VM running on the same host. It started out slowly, built up to around 40MB/s, then dropped down to about 24MB/s for the last third. This is much slower than I expected. Any advice? Thanks Aaron

I've just completed my build - yeah!! John you were the inspiration for this, thanks for taking the time with this post. I went with the Tyan S5510GM3NR and it has worked flawlessly. I installed straight to ESXi 5, but apart from this just followed the instructions on the first page. I have unraid 5b12a which I upgraded to before starting the build when it was plugged into my old desktop. I also went with the M1015 which I bought from someone on this forum, and they had already reflashed it. So now I have my unraid back up and running fine, it spins up/down perfectly and has been running for a couple of days now. I lost my MySQL database in the process, but perhaps I can move it off unraid and on to another VM. Thanks Aaron

Good question. I could do the same on my cache drive, however I'm not sure if the cache drive will be accessible in ESXi, given that it's passed through to unRaid. By the way, thanks for recommending the Tyan mobo. After reading a few reviews of this, and seeing the ESXi compliant NICs, I've gone ahead and bought it from Newegg. Waiting for it to get to Dubai.

Thanks, that did the trick. And I found that after I rebooted my Windows box that wasnt able to connect, the shares were accessible again. Thanks for your help.

Hi, I have recently upgraded from 4.7 to 5b12a. For the most part things are working ok, but I have a couple of questions I'm hoping someone can help with. 1. All of my disk shares and hidden shares are showing up. Ie, flash, disk1, disk2, ... cache, etc. Why are they showing up, and how can I get these to be hidden again? Can't find a setting in the webgui like there used to be in 4.7 to control this. 2. I have a variety of boxes at home - a Windows 7 desktop, Windows 7 laptop, Linux based HTPC and Apple TV HTPC (running XBMC). One of the Windows 7 boxes can't access the user shares. To make it even more weird, if I map one of the shares to a drive, then it can access it fine. But if I just browse to \\tower and try and click on the user share, Windows says that it can't access it. I can access the shares by browsing to them from the other Windows box and Linux boxes. I hope someone can shed some light on this. Aaron

I know, but I don't see that I have much choice. I can get most parts here, it is just the mobo I think. Also I found a user with M1015 here on the forums that will sell me a card and even flash it before sending it, so that is low risk. Thanks for your advice, it is a lot clearer now.

Hi, I've PM'ed you. I would like to buy one of these cards (or actually thinking about it now two of the cards) can you let me know if they are still available and hold them for me if so. Cheers Aaron

So I'm getting close to purchasing some hardware. Because I currently live in Dubai, and have to order equipment from US and get it freight forwarded (Dubai's crap for this sort of thing), I am trying to cover all the bases and get it right first time. Much easier than trying to return/get new hardware at a later date. From your earlier recommendation I am thinking of getting the X8Sil instead of the board you are using. I understand this makes it easier to get 32GB memory now, but I'm also sacrificing the onboard SATA3 connections, which I was thinking I could use for some fast SSD drives for running VMs. Do you think this is a reasonable tradeoff and would you still recommend the X8SIL instead of X9SCM? Also I'm still unsure which raid card/controller card to go with for passthrough. I don't have anything, so I will be starting from scratch either way. I see people frequently talking about the MV8s and the M1015. Which would you recommend if you had neither, and why? I see you recommend the M1015 on your first page now as a recommended upgrade, but I'm still confused about the discussion in the thread of potential compatability issues with these cards. Am I going to have a bumpy ride with these? I don't understand the raid cards at all. Is the M1015's an end of life product? Is the only way to buy these, to get second hand stock? If that's the case and I want to buy new, is there a different card you could recommend? I searched on newegg for LSI cards and there are a ton, but I really don't know what I should look for. How do you navigate the specs on these cards? For example, would the following work? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118112 Haha... the more I look and think, the more confused I get

Thanks so much for your time and effort on this. It's inspirational for me - I would like to do the same thing. I was just looking at hardware on Newegg, which I will need to start acquiring. One thing that occurred to me was to check with you what hardware you would buy now if you were starting again. I will need a new Mobo, CPU and disk controller. What would you look at now given your experiences? Why? And with the controller, on your first post you said you would get a couple of LSI controllers. Which ones? And why did you go with the MV8? Was it just cost? Many thanks again Aaron