Hi All,

 

I have just completed my first build - I am using 2x 2TB WDEARS drives with the jumpers in place.

 

Everything is setup and working after a 60Mb/s Parity build, however I have noticed both drives are showing as "Partition Format: MBR: Unaligned"

 

After reading some posts about large format drives I get the feeling these should be set to "MBR: 4K-aligned"

 

How can I clear everything and rebuild the array & parity using the same disks that are currently in place, but with the 4K-aligned setting?

 

Any help would be great.

 

Cheers

With jumpers in place your alignment is correct. If you add another EARS drive you can leave the jumpers off and check the 4K alignment box when you format with version 4.7. Future versions will default to 4k aligned so you won't have to worry about it.

 

You should leave your drives as is. There is no benefit to removing the jumpers and changing the format.

Thanks dgaschk,

 

I was under the impression that I needed both the 4K format and the jumpers.

 

2 more questions:

 

1. I started the parity build and while it was in progress clicked the format button which obviously starting formatting the non-parity disk. This seemed to end very quickly though (while it was in progress I got no parity build status when refreshing) Should I run anything to check this, or the does fact that it is online and writeable mean that everything is good to go?

 

2. I am awaiting delivery of drive cages and will be putting the drives in connected to the same SATA ports (Sata1 -> Disk 1 etc.) Will unRAID detect these drives without problems after reconnection proving I connect the same drives to the same cables as they currently are?

 

At this point I don't mind having to rebuild everything as there is no data on any of the drives, but I would like to make sure everything is configured properly before usage.

 

Cheers

If jumper is installed on an EARS drive, alignment should be not aligned (i.e., sector 63 aligned). If you read something different, please post a reference so it can be corrected.

 

Formatting a data disk during parity build is fine.

 

If you hook up the drives to drive cages and the ports are not exactly the same, it is easy to fix. Just take a screenshot of you array before you start. Then, after putting the drives in the cages, and booting the server, check to see if the array started. If not, go to the devices tab and assign the right drives to the right slots. Once you get it right, the main tab will say the configuration is valid and allow you to start the array.