Array has missing disks, but I can brows the files and showing space used? Bonus: Should I upgrade my server?


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Newbie question I suppose...  Why does my missing disk have data on it?  I can see and access the data on it...?  The drive is physically not there!  I think I disabled it in the bios, but maybe I just took it out of the array.  Is Unraid putting data on it?

Screenclip_2021-08-20_02-26-50.thumb.png.f69595533312ba98d1d3303313922f09.png

 

Disk 2 is showing 3.02 GB used... but it's empty?

Screenclip_2021-08-20_02-53-12.png.036699f9decb7dab858d238526c29b74.png

 

Background:

My drives are developing bad sectors and the array was full so moved all the data I never use to offline cold storage, and consolidated everything to disk3.  The system is deciding to put stuff on disk1 which I removed. 

 

Bonus question...

I built my rig in 2014 (I think) as a Desktop/Game system that saw Unraid use right away.  It's an i5-4690K, 4th Gen with 32gb ram.  I think the ram is the only thing keeping it alive, if I had a 16gb limit I might have replaced it already!  The hardware is still fairly capable...I haven't ran into any limits with it running my dockers and a couple VMs.  More cores could be nice...I could get an 8 core cpu used and run it some more...

 

Should I just update the drives or build a new server?  I was hoping to get a couple more years out of the hardware I have... but I'd say that a couple of years from now too!  :)  Now that it's an server, I'd like to build a smaller 4-5 external drive bay rig I can hide somewhere rather than my full tower. 

Edited by Mysticle31
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When you simply unplug (or unassigned) a dtive from a parity protected array then Unraid will use the combination of the other drives plus parity to emulate its contents.  So the system continues to operate as if the disk was present.    If there are no files on the emulated drive there will still be space used as part of the file system control information -that will be why it is showing 3.02GB used.

 

if you want to permanently remove the drive (rather than replace it with a working one) then the procedure to use is documented here in the online documentation accessible via the ‘Manual’ link at the bottom of the GUI.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Mysticle31 said:

Newbie question I suppose...  Why does my missing disk have data on it?  I can see and access the data on it...?  The drive is physically not there!  I think I disabled it in the bios, but maybe I just took it out of the array.  Is Unraid putting data on it?

Screenclip_2021-08-20_02-26-50.thumb.png.f69595533312ba98d1d3303313922f09.png

As @itimpi wrote better and more elaborated, the missing disk is emulated and the system continues to operate as if it were present.

 

The system is indeed putting data on it, most likely you have high-water configured as the allocation method and that’s why writes are going to that disk. Move the data away from Disk 1 to the disk you want to keep (Disk 3) and follow the linked procedure to properly have Disk 1 (and why not Disk 2?) removed from the system.

 

2 hours ago, Mysticle31 said:

Disk 2 is showing 3.02 GB used... but it's empty?

Screenclip_2021-08-20_02-53-12.png.036699f9decb7dab858d238526c29b74.png

With the sizes of today’s drives, 3.02 GB is practically nothing. That amount of usage on an empty disk is typically just overhead related to the file system.

 

2 hours ago, Mysticle31 said:

Background:

My drives are developing bad sectors and the array was full so moved all the data I never use to offline cold storage, and consolidated everything to disk3.  The system is deciding to put stuff on disk1 which I removed. 

 

Bonus question...

I built my rig in 2014 (I think) as a Desktop/Game system that saw Unraid use right away.  It's an i5-4690K, 4th Gen with 32gb ram.  I think the ram is the only thing keeping it alive, if I had a 16gb limit I might have replaced it already!  The hardware is still fairly capable...I haven't ran into any limits with it running my dockers and a couple VMs.  More cores could be nice...I could get an 8 core cpu used and run it some more...

 

Should I just update the drives or build a new server?  I was hoping to get a couple more years out of the hardware I have... but I'd say that a couple of years from now too!  :)  Now that it's an server, I'd like to build a smaller 4-5 external drive bay rig I can hide somewhere rather than my full tower. 

If you don’t trust the drives, update them or retire them.

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