mark-hc Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I'm running 4.7. I updated my unraid with two WD Greens 2TB. One of the green drives replaced the Parity, the other replaced a WD Black. There are no jumpers on the Green drives. I did not have the Default Partition Format set to: MBR-4K aligned It is set at it's default MBR:unaligned. What should I do? I just ran parity and have 2 errors. Was I suppose to have it set at 4K aligned? Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I'm running 4.7. I updated my unraid with two WD Greens 2TB. One of the green drives replaced the Parity, the other replaced a WD Black. There are no jumpers on the Green drives. I did not have the Default Partition Format set to: MBR-4K aligned It is set at it's default MBR:unaligned. What should I do? I just ran parity and have 2 errors. Was I suppose to have it set at 4K aligned? It would have been preferred to have it set to 4K aligned Now: 1. did you run a parity check before starting replacing of drives? 2. What do you mean by errors exactly (unRAID reports a few different kinds)? 3. There are commands that can be run to "reset" the drives to 4K aligned, but it involves some command line stuff. Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 I ran parity. I took out my 1TB Parity Drive. I placed in the 2TB drive. (no jumper) I let unraid rebuild. I then ran Parity check (Checked okay) ---------------------------------------------- I then took out a 500GB Disk I replaced the 500GB disk with a new 2TB (no jumper) I let unraid re-build it. I then ran Parity check (Checked okay) ---------------------------------------------- I then took out a 2nd 500GB disk and replaced it with the old 1TB Parity drive. I let unraid re-build it. I then ran Parity check (Last checked on 3/18/2011 12:49:08 AM, finding 2 errors.) I then realized I didn't have the 4K-aligned enabled in the Settings page during the whole process. I am wondering how to correct all this and have 4K-aligned on the two 2TB drives. I need to know how to do this. How would a customer not familiar with Linux commands accomplish this? Link to comment
dgaschk Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 The parity errors should not have occurred in any case. 4K-alignment is a performance issue not correctness. Lets resolve the parity error problem first. Please run a memtest overnight and post system specs. Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 19, 2011 Author Share Posted March 19, 2011 Why do you suspect a memory test? My hardware is all relatively new (Supermicro board) and I have not had any issues until this last parity). I'll run the memory test and report back. What is the next step if the memory test succeeds? Link to comment
dgaschk Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 New memory can be bad. This is the first step in diagnosing this type of problem. One of the mods will say what to do next unless I can think of something. EDIT: Post SMART reports for all of your drives and a syslog. Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 19, 2011 Author Share Posted March 19, 2011 EDIT: Post SMART reports for all of your drives and a syslog. Please inform me how to do that. What are the commands? Link to comment
dgaschk Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 SMART: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=10490.0 syslog: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=10103.0 Can you telnet to the server? Edit: Enter the following to show your hard drive devices: ls /dev/[sh]d? One of them will be your flash drive and the SMART command will fail. Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Yes, the errors are not caused by the unaligned drives. So, once you figure out the errors here is how you fix the drives. You have to clear the master boot record of the drive to be able to change the partition. To do so you can do one of the following; Stop the array. Unassign one drive that needs to be fixed. Start and stop the array with the disk missing. Type this command at the command prompt; dd if=/dev/zero count=64 of=/dev/sdX Assign the drive. Start the array, it will tell you it is rebuilding the drive and you will have to check a box saying you are sure you want to do this. OR Stop the array. Unassign one drive that needs to be fixed. Start and stop the array with the disk missing. Download the preclear script. Type this command at the command prompt; preclear_disk.sh -z /dev/sdX Assign the drive. Start the array, it will tell you it is rebuilding the drive and you will have to check a box saying you are sure you want to do this. sdX is the identifier for the drive you are fixing. You can find it by looking at the devices page. It will be listed in (), for example (sda). Peter Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 20, 2011 Author Share Posted March 20, 2011 Smartmon didn't seem to detect any faults with the drive. I have two new WD 2TB drives on the shelf. Should I just set unraid to Default Partition Format set to: MBR-4K aligned, swapping the exisiting unaligned drives with the brand new ones? Link to comment
Joe L. Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 Smartmon didn't seem to detect any faults with the drive. I have two new WD 2TB drives on the shelf. Should I just set unraid to Default Partition Format set to: MBR-4K aligned, swapping the exisiting unaligned drives with the brand new ones? pre-clear them first... as long as you have the time. Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 20, 2011 Author Share Posted March 20, 2011 I don't really have the time. Although I read a bit about the script and it does seem valuable. I'm surprised Tom doesn't include it in the software. Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 Rather than just swap parts I would try another parity check and see if you get errors again. Run the parity check with nocorrect, there is a button in unMENU to do so. It really would be a good idea to try and figure out the source of those errors before throwing new parts into the mix. If one of the drives acts up during the rebuild then you will be corrupting data on the new drive you are attempting to rebuild. Peter Link to comment
HeadPCRepair Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 Yes, the errors are not caused by the unaligned drives. So, once you figure out the errors here is how you fix the drives. You have to clear the master boot record of the drive to be able to change the partition. To do so you can do one of the following; Stop the array. Unassign one drive that needs to be fixed. Type this command at the command prompt; dd if=/dev/zero count=64 of=/dev/sdX Assign the drive. Start the array, it will tell you it is rebuilding the drive and you will have to check a box saying you are sure you want to do this. OR Stop the array. Unassign one drive that needs to be fixed. Download the preclear script. Type this command at the command prompt; preclear_disk.sh -z /dev/sdX Assign the drive. Start the array, it will tell you it is rebuilding the drive and you will have to check a box saying you are sure you want to do this. sdX is the identifier for the drive you are fixing. You can find it by looking at the devices page. It will be listed in (), for example (sda). Peter I setup a new 4.7 unraid server this week, used 3 SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB hard drives. Updated firmware, and everything is working great with nearly 1tb of data already on the server. I forgot to set the Default partition format to 4k-aligned. Can I use this to fix my drives or would it be better to just format all 3 and start fresh? Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 I setup a new 4.7 unraid server this week, used 3 SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB hard drives. Updated firmware, and everything is working great with nearly 1tb of data already on the server. I forgot to set the Default partition format to 4k-aligned. Can I use this to fix my drives or would it be better to just format all 3 and start fresh? Yes, but when you unassign the drive you should also start and then stop the array while the drive is missing. This makes unRAID "forget" the drive was in the array and it will then accept the same drive again as a replacement to the missing one. Just so you know, I don't think there is much if any advantage to using the 4k-aligned partitioning on a Samsung drive. Peter Link to comment
HeadPCRepair Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 I setup a new 4.7 unraid server this week, used 3 SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB hard drives. Updated firmware, and everything is working great with nearly 1tb of data already on the server. I forgot to set the Default partition format to 4k-aligned. Can I use this to fix my drives or would it be better to just format all 3 and start fresh? Yes, but when you unassign the drive you should also start and then stop the array while the drive is missing. This makes unRAID "forget" the drive was in the array and it will then accept the same drive again as a replacement to the missing one. Just so you know, I don't think there is much if any advantage to using the 4k-aligned partitioning on a Samsung drive. Peter Thanks you Link to comment
Joe L. Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 Just so you know, I don't think there is much if any advantage to using the 4k-aligned partitioning on a Samsung drive. Peter There is no advantage at all. Leave the drive as it is. It can use a partition started at any boundary. Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 21, 2011 Author Share Posted March 21, 2011 I performed another parity check just for kicks, and this time it found 0 errors... I am going to play it safe and pull out the suspicious drive and run it through some thorough hard drive testing tools. Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 23, 2011 Author Share Posted March 23, 2011 Okay guys. I just replaced the 2TB WD Green Parity that was previously not MBR 4K aligned with a new disk. The new parity disk is 4K-aligned showing no errors. Can I take the old (unaligned) 2TB parity disk and replace the other 2TB Drive disk (disk 2, not 4K-aligned) with it? Will unraid reformat the unaligned drive to be 4K aligned? Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted March 23, 2011 Share Posted March 23, 2011 I believe you have to clear the MBR before the partition will be moved. Peter Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 24, 2011 Author Share Posted March 24, 2011 Is there a windows 7 utility that I can use to return the 2TB green drives to factory defaults? I'd like to put them in a new unraid build and want unraid to see them as off the shelf drives. They currently have an unaligned 4K partition from unraid on them. Link to comment
dgaschk Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 You can clear the MBR in unRAID. Enter: dd if=/dev/zero count=800 of=/dev/sdX Where X is the letter designating the drive to be cleared. Don't get this wrong or you'll clear (and mess up) up the wrong drive! Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 24, 2011 Author Share Posted March 24, 2011 I'm trying to avoid messing up anything. That is why I'd like to use a utility in windows 7. Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 Just go to the devices page and there you will find the designators (sda, sdb) listed. So, just pick them from there and run the command. You could also just pull the SATA cables off all the disks you don't want to screw up and then they will be safe. Peter Link to comment
mark-hc Posted March 24, 2011 Author Share Posted March 24, 2011 Thank you for the suggestions, but it's a pain in the ass for me to remove my cages from unraid. I'd rather not have to fuss with my server anymore. I have a sata port and power supply that I can plug into my windows laptop. I'd like to do it from there. Link to comment
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