EternalFootman

Ahhh. Thank you for explaining that. Now I understand! I have one last question, I think. I set my system share to "Prefer" and I invoked the mover (I didn't know the mover worked quite like that!). All the other shares moved like they were supposed to, but the system share is still in two places, and there is a HUGE disparity in size. Any thoughts/ ideas as to what I should do? There is a docker.img and a different libvirt.img in Disk 8... I do not have any Dockers (although I did previously, so I'm thinking this is an old file), and on the cache drive there is nothing in the Docker folder. The docker.img file on Disk 8 has a date of April 20, so it didn't move the Docker? But I also don't have any Docker Apps, so that's kinda weird? The date of the libvirt.img file on disk 8 is yesterday, but there is a libvirt.img on the cache drive that has today's date. Should I just delete both of the system files that are on disk 8?

The rebuild went successfully - I have set appdata, system, and domains to cache prefer (why "prefer" as opposed to "Cache Only"? Just in case the Cache drive fails?). What is the best way to move the files? Should I use the terminal or a plugin like UnBalance? My first instinct is to use the terminal, but I just want to make sure - I'm fairly familiar with terminal, but not necessarily as familiar with UnRaid. I will also go into the BIOS and change the two SATA ports to AHCI - but as far as not using a controller, that really isn't an option right now - I need all the drives and the space, so I need all 12 drives. I've read that a lot of people use expansion SATA controllers, so I'm a little confused as to the differing data that I am seeing on their usefulness? As far as any other SMART warnings - No there are none. About 3 of my drives have UDMA CRC errors that were happening when I had the whole unit plugged into another machine. But since I moved the server out of that machine and into this one, I have not gotten any more SMART errors, specifically those UDMA CRC errors, which I believe were coming from a incompatibility between that old HP server and the PCIe controller. It may have even been because that server's BIOS was set to IDE as well? I'm not sure. I'll change the BIOS immediately on this machine and then we'll see if it happens again. Thanks for all your help! Dave

I'm pretty sure that it is my SATA expansion card that is causing the problem - I originally had this setup in an old HP server and it failed somewhat similarly. I thought that it might have something to do with the older PCIe technology, because I was having multiple UDMA CRC errors, but only on the drives attached to the PCIe expansion card. So I moved the whole setup into this AMD computer, and I haven't had any of those issues, but now I'm still having problems, I guess...? I've attached the .ZIP of the complete diagnostics. I hope that it is something simple/easily fixed and not the SATA expansion card. Thank you so much for your help! w-server-diagnostics-20190420-2153.zip

So, I noticed that one of my drives had literally over 18 quintillion (that is seven sets of 3 zeros - I had to look it up) writes to it. No errors or anything until I tried to spin it up. Here is a shot of the write numbers: When I tried to get a look at the SMART data, the indicator in the Main view was green (indicating that the drive has spun up), but when I click on Attributes, UnRaid kept telling me that it couldn't give me the SMART data until the drive had spun up. Here is a screenshot of the error log right after: I was seriously confused, so I rebooted the server (using the WebGUI) and when it rebooted, the drive was disabled, and I saw these errors: Just for giggles, I shut the server down, and moved the sata cable from my PCIe expansion card to the motherboard to see if it that was the problem. No dice (the drive is still disabled): I had another drive suddenly get disabled previously and I wasn't sure about what was going on, so I replaced it just recently. I wondering if this is a similar issue? This also showed up after I check the array after a parity check. Coincidence? Some more info: Server is an old AMD A8-7650K, watercooled but no overclocking. 8GB of RAM, 2 Parity drives, 9 data drives, 1 Cache drive, and an Ableconn 10 port SATA PCIe 2.0 2-lane adaptor. It is plugged into the only PCIe 3.0 slot on an ASRock FM2A78M-ITX+ motherboard. I know it's not ideal hardware for a server, but this server only is on the network as a backup file server - I have four machines that back up to it once a week using SMB. Most of it's life it spends spun down. Oh, and I'm running UnRaid Plus, 6.6.7. How do I narrow down what is going on here and start figuring out what the issue is? Can I try re-building the drive using the same HD, with it just plugged into one of the SATA ports on the Motherboard instead of on the expansion card? Any help that might get me in the right direction is much appreciated! Thank you, Dave

I do actually have a nice USB dock that is attached to my editing desktop. I'll have to try that as well - That actually seems like the best work-around, and would keep me from having to "install" the new spare into my tower just to pre-clear it. I also want to say that I'm not asking them to change their license, just change the way they count the drives. Guess whether or not that is changing the license is semantics, but most of you have all given my some great advice, so thank you very much!

Yes, I do realize that you don't have to pre-clear. But I also believe that it is an excellent idea, and I like to do it. I did not, however, know that I could connect a device after the array is started and that it wouldn't interrupt the array's operation. I guess I just figured that if it stopped the array upon startup that it would stop the array if you hot-plugged a new drive in. I'll have to try that and see what happens. I do not, however, think that spending another $50 on this software, as good as it is, just for the ability to pre-clear disks is the right answer. I figured that someone would say that - it was just a matter of time, of course. What I've asked for is - in my mind - a legitimate request to help make a happy customer even happier. It provides UnRaid customers with better service, keeping to "the spirit of the law", so to speak, but giving customers a little bit of added flexibility to taking care of their arrays. Conversely, I see the need/practicality in having different "levels" of functionality at different prices. If the creators of UnRaid see it the way you do, then fine, but making happy customers keeps happy customers, right? I, of course, think it a legitimate request that makes a customer's life easier, but doesn't really warrant the need to move up a level like that. I guess we'll see if they do.

So, this is pretty simple, but I'm not sure how well it will be received... I have Unraid Plus, and I have two parity drives and 10 data drives. One drive failed, and I didn't have a spare, so I had to wait to order a new drive before I could rebuild the array. My fault, I know. So I got a great deal on two 3TB drives hooked one up in the place of the bad drive, pre-cleared it and rebuilt the drive. Went to hook up the other drive to pre-clear it and get it ready in case another drive went bad so that I could quickly swap it in. However, I wasn't able to do that, because the array stopped all services because I had 13 drives physically connected to the computer, despite the fact that I only had 12 drives assigned. So here's my request - could you set the maximum number of devices to the "assigned category", so that someone like me could pre-clear another drive and get it ready to be a quick spare? Does that make sense? I'm not trying to cheat the system, just trying to get my array ready for failures and have as little down-time as possible.