I am thinking of clearing out my unraid server and starting over.  I have a couple drives that are suspect for one reason or another...

 

Anyway I wondered what might be the best way to start fresh?  Preclear the drives and start over?  What about within the unraid config as well?  Should I just copy over a new config?

 

Thanks!

 

Neil

 

1) If your not concerned with any data you could just delete your shares within unRAID webmenu, follow up with looking at your data via command line to make sure the drives are completely emtpy.

 

2) From the system console or telnet type in 'initconfig' and confirm with 'Yes'.

Which will force your Parity drive to loose its configuration and start over.

I noticed most of my drives say:

MBR: unaligned

 

Which is weird because I had ear drives WITH the jumper.  I want to do things the right way this time so I am not really sure how to proceed or even if this is a problem.  I change the default now running 4.7 to MBR: 4K-aligned

 

The drives are all ST32000542AS and WDC_WD20EARS.

 

I found out I need to firmware upgrade most of the seagate drives so that should be interesting!

I noticed most of my drives say:

MBR: unaligned

 

Which is weird because I had ear drives WITH the jumper.  I want to do things the right way this time so I am not really sure how to proceed or even if this is a problem.  I change the default now running 4.7 to MBR: 4K-aligned

 

The drives are all ST32000542AS and WDC_WD20EARS.

 

I found out I need to firmware upgrade most of the seagate drives so that should be interesting!

for EARS drive WITH a jumper you WANT "MBR: unaligned."  Do not do ANYTHING. 

Thanks you are the man!

Joe do you concur with the above posting to start fresh?  I had one suspect drive I replaced and I need to replace one other and then start a new array.  I am hoping I might be able to look at the old drive in another system and recoup data (perhaps)

 

Neil

 

I don't know why you wouldn't just stick in the 2 precleared drives to replace the ones with the data loss, type initconfig, answer Yes, let parity build and keep on going. It seems dumb to do the work copying the data back to those drives (4 of them?) that are still perfectly fine.

 

Peter

I am wondering what you hope to achieve by 'starting over'?

 

If your only concern is two 'suspect' drives, then I would have thought that the best way to proceed is to replace one of them, then run a few preclear passes on the old drive.  If it turns out to be good, then use it to replace your other suspect drive and then run preclears on the second suspect drive.

Well I was syncing my two servers and in the processing of repairing the two drives I got everything back up and running but I am missing lots of data.  Since a lot of it is reproducible (not all) I copy the stuff I don't have to the other unraid server and replace the two drives and start over.  Resyncing from scratch.  I am just worried about what gremlins might be in the works.  I guess if I just re-calced parity thats the same as replacing the two suspect drives with blanks and clearing off the parity drive?  Thoughts on that?

 

 

The other issue I thought was a problem was what the MBR was unaligned.  But apparently that isn't an issue with the ear drives but I have that with most of my seagate drives as well.  I don't know if that is "normal" or expected as well...

If you use rsync it will only copy the differences between the two servers.

 

EARS drives with a jumper should be UNaligned and EARS drives with NO jumper should be aligned.

Right I got that about the unaligned now but what about my seagate drive? Model: ST32000542AS

 

I am using the rsync to copy al the data that part I think is just ok.

Right I got that about the unaligned now but what about my seagate drive? Model: ST32000542AS

 

I am using the rsync to copy al the data that part I think is just ok.

 

Read this and you can decide: http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/mb6101_smartalign_technology_faq.pdf

 

They recommend 4K-aligned but their tests show that it does not really matter with these drives.

 

I would get everything set up and working. You can do the realignment procedure at your leisure if you decide.

Ok I will read that probably next week.  Is the realignment procedure not cause data to be lost?

 

I guess replace the two drives, flash the other ST32000542AS because their firmware is a mess and then do what you said above about the parity or do you think I just verify parity?

 

Curious....

Do you mean this:

2) From the system console or telnet type in 'initconfig' and confirm with 'Yes'.

Which will force your Parity drive to loose its configuration and start over.