Adding Hard Drives and Pre Clear already have errors.

[Cartierusm]

I mentioned this in another thread, but for the most part Unraid has served me well and I only really need to do any real maintenance every few years. Therefore I never remember how to do anything significant and when I search these forums and the googles i get 50 different answers. So if someone can direct me to a tutorial for adding hard drives to a V6.9 system I'd appreciate it. I also have another problem with a new drive.

 

I do know, turn off unraid, install new drives, start up unraid, start array, then pre-clear new drives, after that I'm at a loss. Yes I can figure out how to get it to work, by mulling about, but I think that I did that last time and didn't really have the drive, parity in this case, working correctly. So help me out.

 

Now for the error, I just started pre-clear on the two new 8tb drives and after only 10 minutes I got errors on one of the drives, I think it was CRC error, not sure it's in the log attached and there is "error" with the thumbs down next to the drive on the Dashboard page. So should I get a replacement? or Run Pre-Clear again after it's done?

tower-diagnostics-20210504-1815.zip

[John_M]

5 minutes ago, Cartierusm said:

direct me to a tutorial for adding hard drives

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/Storage_Management#Adding_disks

 

You can access the online manual by clicking the link at the bottom right of the Unraid GUI.

 

6 minutes ago, Cartierusm said:

I got errors on one of the drives

 

Shut down and check/replace the SATA cable to the disk and make sure the power cable is firmly seated too. You can acknowledge the CRC error from the menu you get when you click on the thumb down icon.

 

[Cartierusm]

Excellent. Thanks. So if I run pre-clear again after re-seating everything and changing the cable and it's good I should be good to add it to the array?

[John_M]

You don't need to run pre-clear but you can use it as a test, if you want.

[Cartierusm]

Gotcha. Ok. I'll stop it and add it according to the link. Thanks, all.

[Cartierusm]

Ok change positions in my server case for that hard drive and started up the array after assigning the new drives and have immediate errors. SO I take it return it and get a new hard drive?

[John_M]

Post new diagnostics.

[Cartierusm]

Oops, already stopped unraid and pulled the drive and restarted with the one new drive in. I take it the diag won't have the right info since I restarted?

[Cartierusm]

Crap!!! Power outage, I have a UPS and when I booted the Unraid back up both my new 8TB hdd have Device is Disabled, Contents Emulated. Can anyone help??? What went wrong. Sorry I rebooted so probably no log. I find it hard to believe it's common hard drive failure seeing as it's both my new 8tb Drives. I rebooted and I move their positions in the unraid physically to see if it was a cable or something.

[6of6]

I had three power outages and an additional two internet outages over the past month. I can give you advice...

 

1) Don't trust the UnRAID WebUI. Only use it locally with your IP and turn off everything "unraid.net" related.

 

2) If #1 doesn't work, I hope you will help me because I'm only 22 days in....

 

The WebUI updates without warning... Hope the next one works for you.

 

6.

[Cartierusm]

I appreciate the help, but I'm not understanding what you want me to try. I only acess my unraid from my home computer through the webgui. I don't understand the rest, the "use it locally" and turn everything off for unraid.net.

[jonp]

Hi there,

 

It sounds like these are the events and the order in which they have transpired so far:

 

1)  You purchased two new 8TB drives, but from their very first installation, you received errors during the clearing process indicating problems with either the drives, the controller they are attached to, or the cables in between.  You tried moving them to different slots and got the same result.

 

2)  You don't state this in any of your posts, but you must have finally gotten it to work to the point where the drives were successfully cleared and added to the array.

 

3)  You had a power failure and when the system rebooted, you say that your drives show up as device disabled, contents emulated.  To be clear, if the system had a power failure, on reboot, the system would not have started automatically.  Are you saying when you logged into the webGui you either didn't notice or understand the status of the Main tab and therefore started the array not realizing that those two devices were booted from the array?

 

In the event of unexpected power loss, there is a chance of data corruption so when the system reboots, it will not start automatically.  You have to manually login to the webGui and start it.  In addition, when the system does start, it will automatically perform a parity check to ensure that parity remains in sync with all the devices in the array (indicating that no data corruption occurred).  This cannot happen if more devices were ejected from the array than parity can protect.  In your case, you have dual parity, so therefore the array could start and emulate the contents of the two missing drives.

 

I would suggest stopping the array, powering off the system, reconnecting those two drives with different cables and different ports.  There is clearly something either wrong with the drives, the cables, the ports, the controller, or something else in your hardware as the same two devices have been giving you these issues since first installation.

 

 

[Cartierusm]

1. I did install two new drives. One didn't pass pre-clear. The other did.

 

2. After I replaced the drive that didn't pass pre-clear with a new one everything was OK.

 

3. My power was off, but I have a UPS hooked up so I assume it powered itself off in a clean fashion.

 

4. When I powered it back on after the power came back on it booted just fine. No errors or rather messages, leading me to believe the UPS program shut down unraid clean, but it did have those two new drives as disabled and contents emulated. I did notice that those drives were disabled, but didn't know what that meant so I didn't start the array, but shut it down tried it again and got the same result. Read some on here and tried moving the drives around to different slots, slots where there are other drives that work fine in the array, to no avail.

 

Like I said those drives are in slots right next to other drives on the same card. It's a 20 bay or whatever server so the drives just slide in, in their little carriages. All the cables are pre-wired.

 

I could try moving those new drives to slots that are showing up as good in the array?

 

P.S. Question, if those drives are showing up disabled, does that mean they are not working in unraid's eyes? Meaning it's just as if those drives are not connected? So if that's correct then in theory if those drives connect by moving them to a different location when I start the array unraid will re-enable them?

Edited May 21, 2021 by Cartierusm

[itimpi]

A 'disabled' drive means that as far as Unraid is concerned a write to it has failed so it will no longer use it until appropriate corrective action has been taken.  This is covered in more detail here in the online documentation that can be accessed via the Manual link at the bottom of the Unraid GUI.

[Cartierusm]

Thanks. I tried looking at the tutorials the other day and all were missing. I don't know if that section was down.

 

So what should I do, just go ahead and rebuild the drives one at a time or both together or try to find out the main problem?

[Cartierusm]

Ok I really need some help. I went ahead and just rebuilt the drives. And then it was working again. I left it for a day and then went back to it and stopped the parity and then I had red Xs again. I restarted the parity and again it said Device is Disabled, Contents Emulated. SO I have no idea of what's going on. I didn't restart this time so here's my log.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

tower-diagnostics-20210524-2128.zip

[itimpi]

Wha do you mean by you ‘stopped the parity’?  

[JorgeB]

You're using a SAS2LP controller, it dropped 2 disks at the same time, these controllers are not recommended for Unraid v6, you should use an LSI instead if possible:

 

May 24 16:53:45 Tower kernel: drivers/scsi/mvsas/mv_sas.c 1415:mvs_I_T_nexus_reset for device[0]:rc= 0
May 24 16:53:45 Tower kernel: drivers/scsi/mvsas/mv_sas.c 1415:mvs_I_T_nexus_reset for device[1]:rc= 0
May 24 16:53:45 Tower kernel: ata15.00: failed to IDENTIFY (INIT_DEV_PARAMS failed, err_mask=0x80)
May 24 16:53:45 Tower kernel: ata15.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5)
May 24 16:53:46 Tower kernel: sas: sas_form_port: phy0 belongs to port3 already(1)!
May 24 16:53:46 Tower kernel: sas: sas_form_port: phy1 belongs to port4 already(1)!
May 24 16:53:50 Tower kernel: ata14.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)
May 24 16:53:50 Tower kernel: ata14.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4)
May 24 16:53:50 Tower kernel: ata14.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5)
May 24 16:53:51 Tower kernel: sas: sas_form_port: phy0 belongs to port3 already(1)!
May 24 16:53:53 Tower kernel: drivers/scsi/mvsas/mv_sas.c 1415:mvs_I_T_nexus_reset for device[0]:rc= 0
May 24 16:53:53 Tower kernel: ata14.00: failed to IDENTIFY (INIT_DEV_PARAMS failed, err_mask=0x80)
May 24 16:53:53 Tower kernel: ata14.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5)
May 24 16:53:56 Tower kernel: ata15.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)
May 24 16:53:56 Tower kernel: ata15.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4)
May 24 16:53:56 Tower kernel: ata15.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5)
May 24 16:53:56 Tower kernel: sas: sas_form_port: phy1 belongs to port4 already(1)!
May 24 16:53:58 Tower kernel: ata14.00: failed to IDENTIFY (INIT_DEV_PARAMS failed, err_mask=0x80)
May 24 16:53:58 Tower kernel: ata14.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5)
May 24 16:53:58 Tower kernel: ata14.00: disabled
May 24 16:53:58 Tower kernel: drivers/scsi/mvsas/mv_sas.c 1415:mvs_I_T_nexus_reset for device[1]:rc= 0
May 24 16:54:09 Tower kernel: ata15.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)
May 24 16:54:09 Tower kernel: ata15.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4)
May 24 16:54:09 Tower kernel: ata15.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5)
May 24 16:54:09 Tower kernel: ata15.00: disabled
May 24 16:54:09 Tower kernel: sas: sas_form_port: phy1 belongs to port4 already(1)!
May 24 16:54:11 Tower kernel: drivers/scsi/mvsas/mv_sas.c 1415:mvs_I_T_nexus_reset for device[1]:rc= 0
May 24 16:54:11 Tower kernel: sas: --- Exit sas_scsi_recover_host: busy: 0 failed: 2 tries: 1

 

P.S. some other ATA errors on different disks that suggest cable/connection issues.

[Cartierusm]

@itimpi I went to the stop button on the main page and hit stop.

 

@JorgeB, crap, ok. I'm using a case that has 20 or so quick slots for hard drives all the "cards" are built in. Two questions, I wonder if I'm having this problem because the system doesn't like that many drives in there? I only say that because I've been using this system virtually problem from for about 10 years.

 

Also, what would you recommend for a case that has those quick slots for hard drives? or maybe a system that's all ready built but missing the HDD? Thanks.

 

P.S. Could it be a problem between the new HDD and the old hardware? Cause right now I'm removing the drives from the system and maybe replace one of the 4TB with it and see it the system stays stable.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Cartierusm

[JorgeB]

You can see below for a list of recommended controllers:

 

 

[Cartierusm]

Ok can you help me narrow the problems down as to which hard drives have been getting dropped so I can isolate the cables/slots it coming from?

 

I don't understand the SAS2LP vs. LSI so I'll list my equipment.

 

I have:

Norco 4U Rack Mount 20-Bays SATA/SAS Server Chassis RPC-4220

ASRock Z97 Extreme 6 MOBO with 10 Sata Ports going to Sata to Mini SAS cables that go to the backplane that the HDD slide into.

Supermicro AOC- SAS2LP-MV8 Card with SAS going to Mini SAS on the backplane.

 

OK, LOL now that I type this I get what you're saying about the SAS2LP. So guide me, that SAS2LP card is supplying the 2 parity drives and 4 to 6 of the hard drives (can't check now as I'm rebuilding the parity). So I should replace that SAS2LP card with an SAS LSI card? I don't know the difference.

 

Thanks.

 

 

P.S. I'm a little dense today. I get it, the link above cards that are liable. LOL ok got it. Thanks. I'll try replacing the card. Do I need to install drivers for it or is it self installing?

Edited May 26, 2021 by Cartierusm

[Cartierusm]

Ok I think I've got the hardware figured out. Here's what I bought.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008J49G9A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S7KU3PC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Cartierusm]

I know a lot of questions. This should sum what I was asking above.

 

1. The card I ordered so I just install in and that's it or do I need to install drivers?

2. How do I test it out to see if that was my problem? Install it and re-asign the drives if needed and then add the two new 8TB drives that failed and see if they hold up?

3. Can you tell from my log which drives has the ata errors to see if those are on the SAS2LP card as well so I know if I should change my SATA to Mini SAS cables from the MOBO SATA ports.

[JorgeB]

2 hours ago, Cartierusm said:

1. The card I ordered so I just install in and that's it or do I need to install drivers?

Plug and play.

 

2 hours ago, Cartierusm said:

2. How do I test it out to see if that was my problem? Install it and re-asign the drives if needed and then add the two new 8TB drives that failed and see if they hold up?

Basically yes, see if the server starts working normally.

 

2 hours ago, Cartierusm said:

3. Can you tell from my log which drives has the ata errors to see if those are on the SAS2LP card as well so I know if I should change my SATA to Mini SAS cables from the MOBO SATA ports.

Disk3 on an Asmedia controller, replace cables on that disk.

[Cartierusm]

Awesome, thanks.