Few question

[subwars]

Hey guys, just a few questions wanting to check on.

 

I've been getting low on space lately and as a result my data is spread all over my span of disks atm, and have almost completely run out now. So going to pickup a couple 2tb sammys on the weekend. And yes I'll be upgrading the firmware on them.. have to look into that actually on obtaining the firmware etc to

 

Now all my previously newly bought drives I've just added them, unraid's come up as un-formatted, and within a couple mins, there up and running. Never had it do a wipe like the pre-clear script is suppose to do for you in advance.

So question one.. should i really be running the pre-clear script first. Or the fact they are brand new drives, pre-clearing isn't going to do anything anyway, and it's only for previously used drives???

 

2nd is once there up and going I'll have to do some housekeeping, (i try and keep my shares set to specific drives so when i go into folder x, only a few drives may spin up rather then all. Which it's gotten very messy the last couple months, since i started running out of space on a couple shares, and had to let them off their leash).

In the process of doing that, I'll be filling up one of the new 2tb, which will make the new disk1.(Other becoming parity). And the previous parity(1.5tb) will become disk 2. Ect.

 

So I'll be filling them up, well almost anyway, and empty out other drives. Now depending on your answer from question one. Should i then run the pre-clear on the now disk1, soon to become disk3, and so on down the line pre-clearing all my older disks as i go? (Just going to have to double-triple check my drive letters, making sure i don't pre-clear the wrong one. Hell I'll probably even pull the power on the others, so I'm 100% sure before i do a pre-clear.

 

3rd question is, I'm going to have to upgrade to at least 4.7, (haven't gotten round to upgrading since 4.5.6 yet) for the advance formatting. Now i know the new 2tb have it, but I'm not 100% sure on my 1.5tb, i know some do, but not sure on mine. They are also sammys, all the drives in my server are actually. There HD154UI 's the greenies.

I don't think they are, I've googled and haven't come up with anything saying they are, so I'm guessing not, but as i said I'm not sure so asking, cause if they are, I might as well get them re-formatted into advance while I'm re-organizing everything.

 

And last but not least, I'm really keen on upgrading to 5.0, now I've used all the previous betas these last couple years Ive been using unraid, but have held off on the upgrade to 5, just wanted to let it mature a little bit before i made the plunge. So just wondering on how it's going, does it seem stable enough, that I might as well just upgrade straight to 5.0 and skip 4.7? Yes i know it's beta and all the risks, but if it's not causing anyone major stability or any data loss. (If someone could just let me know how things are  going with it. Without me reading though all of the pages currently on it.) Then I'll upgrade to it on the weekend as well.

 

Thanks to all who can answer/advice

 

[dgaschk]

Pre-clear is intended for new drives. A significant percentage of new drives fail pre-clear and are RMA'd. It is designed to stress a drive and weed out the weak ones. If your drives have been in use for a while and the SMART reports look good then there is no need to pre-clear unless your adding to the array and don't want it to be down while unRAID clears the drive as this could take up to 12 hours. It is odd that you have been adding drives and your array is not offline for the 8-12 hours it takes for unRAID to clear a drive.

 

There is not benefit to changing your drives to 4K aligned unless they are advanced format. If not, leave them be. Unless you have a WD EARS drive with a jumper then leave it as is. There is no benefit to removing the jumper and removing the jumper can be problematic.

 

All new drives under 4.7+ should be formatted as 4K aligned, including WD EARS; do not add the jumper to new WD EARS. If your reusing a drive then format as 4k aligned unless its a WD EARS with a jumper.

 

Stick to 4.7 until 5.0 final is released unless you want to beta test.

 

Replace your drives one at a time starting with parity and let unRAID rebuild the contents.

[candre23]

It is odd that you have been adding drives and your array is not offline for the 8-12 hours it takes for unRAID to clear a drive.

When I first set up unraid a few days ago it only took about 5 minutes to format my drives (2TB parity, 2TB and 1TB data).  Maybe it only does the long format under certain conditions?

[dgaschk]

How long did it take to generate parity? On a new array perhaps it does not clear the drives. With an existing array the drive must be cleared. New drives are not guaranteed to be all zeroes. In order to add a drive without effecting parity it must be all zeroes.

[Joe L.]

Hey guys, just a few questions wanting to check on.

 

I've been getting low on space lately and as a result my data is spread all over my span of disks atm, and have almost completely run out now. So going to pickup a couple 2tb sammys on the weekend. And yes I'll be upgrading the firmware on them.. have to look into that actually on obtaining the firmware etc to

 

Now all my previously newly bought drives I've just added them, unraid's come up as un-formatted, and within a couple mins, there up and running. Never had it do a wipe like the pre-clear script is suppose to do for you in advance.

That is because you did not yet have a parity disk assigned.  Now that you do, unRAID would clear the drive if you had not pre-cleared it.  While it clears the drive the server will be off-line. (probably 8 or 9 hours for a 2TB drive)

So question one.. should i really be running the pre-clear script first.

Absolutely.

Or the fact they are brand new drives, pre-clearing isn't going to do anything anyway, and it's only for previously used drives???

It is for every drive, even for drives you will be using in other PCs.  It is a burn-in of the new drive.  Lately it appears as many as 1 in 5 drives fails when brand new.  Are you feeling lucky?

2nd is once there up and going I'll have to do some housekeeping, (i try and keep my shares set to specific drives so when i go into folder x, only a few drives may spin up rather then all. Which it's gotten very messy the last couple months, since i started running out of space on a couple shares, and had to let them off their leash).

In the process of doing that, I'll be filling up one of the new 2tb, which will make the new disk1.(Other becoming parity). And the previous parity(1.5tb) will become disk 2. Ect.

 

So I'll be filling them up, well almost anyway, and empty out other drives. Now depending on your answer from question one. Should i then run the pre-clear on the now disk1, soon to become disk3, and so on down the line pre-clearing all my older disks as i go? (Just going to have to double-triple check my drive letters, making sure i don't pre-clear the wrong one. Hell I'll probably even pull the power on the others, so I'm 100% sure before i do a pre-clear.

the preclear script will not work on a drive assigned to the array.  You'll need to un-assign each drive in turn. replace it wit a new drive, re-construct onto the new, then clear the old drive you had un-assigned.  Then shampoo-lather-rinse-repeat.

3rd question is, I'm going to have to upgrade to at least 4.7, (haven't gotten round to upgrading since 4.5.6 yet) for the advance formatting. Now i know the new 2tb have it, but I'm not 100% sure on my 1.5tb, i know some do, but not sure on mine. They are also sammys, all the drives in my server are actually. There HD154UI 's the greenies.

I don't think they are, I've googled and haven't come up with anything saying they are, so I'm guessing not, but as i said I'm not sure so asking, cause if they are, I might as well get them re-formatted into advance while I'm re-organizing everything.

 

And last but not least, I'm really keen on upgrading to 5.0, now I've used all the previous betas these last couple years Ive been using unraid, but have held off on the upgrade to 5, just wanted to let it mature a little bit before i made the plunge. So just wondering on how it's going, does it seem stable enough, that I might as well just upgrade straight to 5.0 and skip 4.7? Yes i know it's beta and all the risks, but if it's not causing anyone major stability or any data loss. (If someone could just let me know how things are  going with it. Without me reading though all of the pages currently on it.) Then I'll upgrade to it on the weekend as well.

 

Thanks to all who can answer/advice

 

5.0Beta5 is NOT stable at all for some motherboards.  It is for others.  I'd say the same for 4.7 if you have any disks with an HPA.  You'll not be able to start the array.  Upgrade to 4.6 first.  Then 4.7 only if your syslog has no mention of an HPA on any of your disks, then once 5.0beta5 is released and IF there are no huge issues, it might be OK.  There is a major change in it and there is no reverting to earlier versions easily, and lastly, YOU DO NOT NEED THE AF FEATURE.  Leave your existing disks as they are.  You are only putting your data at risk. moving the partition up one sector unless there is a full backup of your data elsewhere.

 

Joe L.

[jeff.lebowski]

It is odd that you have been adding drives and your array is not offline for the 8-12 hours it takes for unRAID to clear a drive.

When I first set up unraid a few days ago it only took about 5 minutes to format my drives (2TB parity, 2TB and 1TB data).  Maybe it only does the long format under certain conditions?

 

Pre-clear and format are different functions.

 

Pre-clear is when a drive is brand new, and not yet added to the array.

 

Format is used once the pre-clear is complete, and the drive has been added to the array using the Devices page. After it's added to the array and you refresh unRAID main, the drive should have a blue dot, and the format option should be available.

[Joe L.]

It is odd that you have been adding drives and your array is not offline for the 8-12 hours it takes for unRAID to clear a drive.

When I first set up unraid a few days ago it only took about 5 minutes to format my drives (2TB parity, 2TB and 1TB data).  Maybe it only does the long format under certain conditions?

 

Pre-clear and format are different functions.

 

Pre-clear is when a drive is brand new, and not yet added to the array.

 

Format is used once the pre-clear is complete, and the drive has been added to the array using the Devices page. After it's added to the array and you refresh unRAID main, the drive should have a blue dot, and the format option should be available.

Formatting only takes a few minutes.  Clearing takes many hours.  It is necessary to ensure continued parity protection.  unRAID does not clear disks if parity have not been initially assigned.  Once you assign a parity drive it will clear all subsequent drives added to the array. (if they are not pre-cleared)

[Joe L.]

Pre-clear is intended for new drives. I disagree.  It is useful for ANY drive you intend to use in ANY PC or server.

A significant percentage of new drives fail pre-clear and are RMA'd. It is designed to stress a drive and weed out the weak ones. If your drives have been in use for a while and the SMART reports look good then there is no need to pre-clear unless your adding to the array and don't want it to be down while unRAID clears the drive as this could take up to 12 hours. It is odd that you have been adding drives and your array is not offline for the 8-12 hours it takes for unRAID to clear a drive.

I would pre-clear regardless.  Yes, the older drive might be fine, but I'll have some piece of mind.

There is not benefit to changing your drives to 4K aligned unless they are advanced format. If not, leave them be.

Leave all existing drives as they are unless you have specific performance problems.  The risks of data loss it high.

 

Joe L.

[subwars]

That is because you did not yet have a parity disk assigned.

I see, when I've gotten a new drive it's always become the new parity drive.. So that's obviously got something to do with it not clearing i guess

 

That HPA thing... is that the thing gigabyte boards where doing, where they were putting a copy of the bios or something onto a drive.. if so, then yes my current disk1 has that on it, one of the things i was wanting to try and get rid of by doing a pre-clear on it once i get all of it's data off it onto the new drive. will it cause problems upgrading to 4.7? or am i way off and HPA is something else

 

YOU DO NOT NEED THE AF FEATURE.

Still enable it for the new 2tb drives though right? Your just referring to doing it to current drives with data on them?

 

But if I'm going to run a pre-clear on my current 1.5tb drives anyway, i might as well change it in the process right? That is if they are even AF drives in the first place?

 

[Joe L.]

That is because you did not yet have a parity disk assigned.

I see, when I've gotten a new drive it's always become the new parity drive.. So that's obviously got something to do with it not clearing i guess

 

That HPA thing... is that the thing gigabyte boards where doing, where they were putting a copy of the bios or something onto a drive.. if so, then yes my current disk1 has that on it, one of the things i was wanting to try and get rid of by doing a pre-clear on it once i get all of it's data off it onto the new drive. will it cause problems upgrading to 4.7? or am i way off and HPA is something else

Yes, gigabyte does add an HPA.  No the preclear will not remove it, you MUST use either the hdparm tool, Seatools, or a similar utility to remove it.

 

YOU DO NOT NEED THE AF FEATURE.

Still enable it for the new 2tb drives though right? Your just referring to doing it to current drives with data on them?

 

But if I'm going to run a pre-clear on my current 1.5tb drives anyway, i might as well change it in the process right? That is if they are even AF drives in the first place?

 

you can change it if you want, but it will have absolutely no affect on performance.  Older drives (pre 4k-AF internal) can be partitioned on any sector with no impact to performance.

 

Joe L.

[subwars]

thanks Joe. I just read your posts between yourself and peter in the 4.7 thread about the HPA problem he had.. i'm going to do that myself now, in preparation for the upgrade.

 

After everyones posts it does look like the fact that the drives i previously added replacing the parity, and not being cleared by unraid or myself manually, the fact they were new and didn't actually need to be zeroed anyway, was just the fact that i didn't give them a burn in to check for possible problems, and since they've had a decent work out by now anyway, probably not really worth clearing them now after all this time.

 

So i'll just leave them for now. but i will definatly be running it for the 2 new drives I'll be getting. Joe if you could just confirm that this

preclear_disk.sh -A /dev/sda

command is still the best/right one for me to use on them, that would be great, you've updated it so much recently with new tags.

[dgaschk]

the fact they were new and didn't actually need to be zeroed anyway

 

This is wrong. New drives are not zeroed by the manufacturer. A new drive could be totally full of ones. There are no rules or standards for the content of new drives. They could be filled jpegs of Lena for all we know.

 

The reason that none of your new drives were cleared is because they we added as parity drives. The parity drive does not need to be cleared because it is written completely when parity is calculated.

 

Did you reuse any of the parity drive you replaced in unRAID? These drives would have to be cleared before they could be formatted.

[subwars]

the fact they were new and didn't actually need to be zeroed anyway

 

This is wrong. New drives are not zeroed by the manufacturer. A new drive could be totally full of ones. There are no rules or standards for the content of new drives. They could be filled jpegs of Lena for all we know.

 

The reason that none of your new drives were cleared is because they we added as parity drives. The parity drive does not need to be cleared because it is written completely when parity is calculated.

 

Did you reuse any of the parity drive you replaced in unRAID? These drives would have to be cleared before they could be formatted.

 

yes the old parity drives became data drives, and unraid never cleared them at that stage either

 

 

edit: just checked my system log and that hpa error is in it.

Feb  9 20:32:46 Server kernel: ata7.01: HPA detected: current 2930275055, native 2930277168 (Errors)

[dgaschk]

I noticed that you are using a Gigabyte MB. Does this MB allow disabling of HP by default?

[subwars]

pretty sure i did notice it and disable it already awhile ago, i'll have to pull it out and hook up a monitor to it to check

[dgaschk]

If its not off by default the the HPA problem will occur again. When the CMOS is reset for any reason, e.g., when the battery dies, HPA will return.

 

Turning it off is not good enough. This board will one day surprise you with additional HPA problems.

[subwars]

just download the M/B manual and went through the bios settings in the manual, and couldn't find any reference to the hpa in it, must of been a different board i saw it .. so does that mean if i get rid of it off the drive with hdpam, it will just come straight back after a reboot?

[Joe L.]

so does that mean if i get rid of it off the drive with hdpam, it will just come straight back after a reboot?

Yes, and worse than that, it may clobber your data as it might choose a different disk.

[subwars]

god damit.. so 4.7 wont work with a hpa in place period?

[Joe L.]

god damit.. so 4.7 wont work with a hpa in place period?

Not if it is an odd number of sectors.  (and the ones gigabyte creates all are)

 

What will happen is the disk will appear too small.

 

Tom lime-tech is working on a solution, so I expect 4.7.1 to possibly be released... 

 

Joe L.