LeSamourai72

Thank you for the helpful suggestions. I was eventually going to install a larger hard drive in place of that particular (currently failing) drive anyways, so now is the time and I have a clear plan of action. For what it is worth, I was always reticent to run correcting parity checks and now I remember why. I've been meaning to upgrade to a more recent UNRAID version, and that plugin sounds like as good a reason as any to do it sooner than later. The 'problem' with running such a vanilla UNRAID server like mine (mainly just for media storage, nothing fancy), is it just works; most of my efforts are upgrading drives and replacing fans, as well as a power supply or two (nearby lightning strike, which also took out the mother board; not an UNRAID issue, just force majeure). I think we can consider this issue solved unless anyone else has something to add. Cheers, -L

Thanks in advance for the help. I've been running an unraid server for just about 10 years. Not currently familiar with best practices and my searches are coming up empty. I've replaced drives in the past, but usually just to increase the total array size. Recently a drive has started reporting read errors (4800-ish errors, Reallocated Sector Count Raw Value=8) and it passes short & extended SMART self tests. If I was just replacing a healthy drive for a larger drive, I would usually 1) run a Parity check beforehand, 2) replace the drive with larger drive, 3) let the rebuild process run it's course, then 4) run another Parity Check. At this moment, I can't remember if it's OK to run a Parity Check with a currently failing drive. I should also add that I've been lax with keeping up a regular schedule of Parity Checks and haven't run one in over a year (yeah, not smart I know). Running 6.5.1 and I've attached diagnostics as it seems like the thing to do. Thanks again for the help and glad to see UNRAID's success flourishing over the years. -L tower-diagnostics-20210104-2243.zip

Just realized that this is a bit of a repost from last week, but ... Not a bad price, be advised it is only a 2 year warranty. Just a desktop drive, so as always, do your 3x preclears as due diligence beforehand. Also, if you use Visa Checkout on Newegg with the code VCOBF15 , you can get $10 off orders of $100 or $25 off orders of $200. I ended up getting 2 drives and adding a filler item to total just over $200, which made it roughly $87 per drive after the $25 off credit. Not too bad. Took a while to find a filler item with free shipping, but I ended up with some office sweatband thing. Amazon - Seagate 4TB Drive - http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-SATA-3-5-Inch-Desktop-ST4000DM000/dp/B00B99JU4S/ref=pd_sim_147_3 ie=UTF8&dpID=51xcTNkDcIL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=1TKTEQFY7T4AS9HH4HSB Newegg - Seagate 4TB Drive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178338 Visa Checkout Promo: http://promotions.newegg.com/nepro/15-5474/index.html?sdtid=8276267&SID=15b0f46c93bd11e5b063820b2527e7750INT&AID=10440897&PID=1225267&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=

I'm interested. Sending a PM. Thanks. -L

Not as good as last week's deals, but it's something. Also, not sure what the warranty is, so you may have to do some research. http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST3000DM001/dp/B005T3GRLY/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_1 Edit: Now Dead. Deal was obviously short-lived, but maybe someone was able to take advantage of the brief window. -L

Thanks for the help BLKMGK. I don't have any reason to believe parity is not valid, I was just wondering about the validity of the parity checks. Looks like I need to understand parity a bit more I'm going to go ahead and replace the parity drive. I do have one more question though I'm hoping someone can answer: I have a new 3TB 7200 Seagate drive that went through 3 pre-clears, but I needed to transfer to about 500 GBs between computers and formatted it for use on a desktop computer. Do I need to run another pre-clear on it before I use it as a parity drive for my unRAID setup? Thanks for the advice, -L

Hello Folks, After a recent non-correcting parity check, noticed some read errors in the parity disk column via the web interface, but no reported parity sync issues. Checked the syslog, and saw some 'handle_stripe read errors'. Ran a second non-correcting parity check, and the parity disk read errors increased, but again no reported parity sync issues. I ran short and long SMART tests on the parity drive; short tests ran OK, but both long tests seemed to stop soon after having a read error with 90% or the test remaining. The only SMART reporting data that caught my attention was the Current_Pending_Sector count of 45; I checked that same drive 3 months ago (I still have the SMART report) and the Current_Pending_Sector was 0. My question is, if the parity disk is having read errors, does that invalidate the parity sync check? If unRAID can't read the data on the parity drive, how can it make a decision about whether or not the data on the drives is correct? How can I be sure that data drives can be trusted to build parity on a new replacement parity drive? System set up is in my sig and I've included my syslog and SMART report for the parity drive. Thanks for the assistance and let me know if I left anything out, -L Parity_Check_Syslog_2012-11-13.zip SMART_Report_Parity_Disk.zip

Finally an update: I ran long (& short) tests on all my data drives (as well as my parity drive) and didn't see any re-allocated sectors or sectors pending re-allocation anywhere. Some drives had high Raw_Read_Error_Rate errors, but that was it. I had to reboot the box to run the 30 hour memtest, but since re-starting the array, I haven't done anything else besides run the SMART tests via unMENU. Not surprising, the errors have not reappeared in the parity drive column yet, so I think I will run a non-correcting parity check and see what happens. I'm not sure what I'll do if any errors do show up, but let me know if anyone else has any other suggestions. I've included a zipped set of the SMART reports (as well as the original syslog) if anyone has the wherewithal to look through them. Thanks much, -L SMART_Reports_plus_syslog.zip

Thanks for the input Joe. I ran a memtest for about 30 hours (something like 28 passes I think) with no errors. Now, I'll start doing long SMART tests on the rest of the data drives looking for re-allocated sectors or sectors pending re-allocation (see earlier post for the results for drive 9- the one I suspect most) and will post when finished. Better to figure out this kind of stuff earlier than later, I guess. -L

Thanks for the help dgaschk, I didn't think to check the data drive since the unRAID main menu didn't list any errors. In hindsight, seems like a good idea. I've included the SMART report for the data drive in question (drive 9),and noticed that it does have have some disturbingly high numbers in some categories, but no re-allocation of sectors. Maybe I should have submitted the pre-clear results for the forum to look at, but I didn't think it was that bad. I have a replacement drive, but would obviously like to know if I can trust my parity drive at the moment before attempting to rebuild drive 9. I'm still unsure what my next step would be in terms of the correct/no correct parity check. -L Drive_9_Smart_Test_6_2_12.txt

Hello Everyone! Discovered my first parity drive errors and I'm looking for confirmation on my next steps. Context: Its my first build and have been running for about a month with 5.0b14 and my last parity check was 14 days ago with no errors. Recently transferred some files across my network overnight via Teracopy from my Win 7 machine, and it said bad crc match on only one file (first time that's happened in about 4TB of movies), so I copied it over again, this time with success. Took a look at unRAID main page and saw 122 errors on the parity drive. I've included the short and long SMART tests (which seem to be OK) as well as the syslog. I think I've posted them correctly, but let me know. After searching and reading through the forum posts, I can't decide which parity check to run (correct or no correct). Since I believe the drive to be OK (I know disks can fail, but I ran successful 3-cycle pre-clears on every drive in my array), I want to run a correcting parity check, but thought I would double-check with the forum first. Third option would be to stop the array, un-assign the parity drive, start the array, stop the array, re-assign the parity, and let it build parity sync, run a parity check, then see if the errors arise again. If someone could give me a nudge in the right direction, I would appreciate it. Most of my relevant info should be in my sig & my apologies for the newb handholding. Thanks for your help. syslog-2012-06-01.zip Parity_Drive_Smart_Test_6_1_12.txt

... one more WD 3TB (WD30EZRS-11J99B1) 3 cycle preclear for comparison on the same system as previously posted (note: only 1 drive preclearing this time): Preclear Successful ... Total time 93:56:08 ... Pre-Read time 9:17:50 (89 MB/s) ... Zeroing time 8:57:35 (93 MB/s) ... Post-Read time 19:05:19 (43 MB/s)

I know the OP was asking about Hitachi's, but it took around 106 hours for a 3 cycle preclear on a pair of 3TB 5400 Western Digital drives (WD30EZRX) on a dell optiplex 745 with a Core 2 Duo (E6300 1.8 GHz, 4GB RAM) that I had lying around (just using it as a preclear machine running 5.0b14 free version). FWIW, I just had gotten my 4.7 unRaid put together (based on Raj's 12 drive budget build) with 8-2TBs (only transferred some BD iso's as a test to stream to my PCH A300, nothing major yet), but I came across some 3TB drives and really want to use them, so may just do 5.0b14 from the get go, but that's another story ...

FWIW (and with respect to Raj), same one I believe from Newegg, but a dollar less and with free shipping: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148366&Tpk=Rendition%20by%20Crucial%20RM51264BA1339%20Desktop%20Memory Found it today as I was picking out a bunch of stuff for my first unRAID build and saw the deal recommendation. Super helpful forum community here- very impressed. Caught the building bug after picking up the CORSAIR CX430 V2 PSU deal that was listed here a few days ago. You guys are the best. Thanks for the help!!